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Thank you for the detailed response. I'm afraid you totally misunderstood my comment. I said: "Nobody denies lockdowns have damaging effects in other areas." W

Thank you for the detailed response. I'm afraid you totally misunderstood my comment. I said: "Nobody denies lockdowns have damaging effects in other areas." What I'm saying is, is that lockdowns technically work. Keep everyone inside (including the delivery guy) and spreading will be reduced. Let's take this one step further. What if we could (hypothetically) isolate the entire planet for 1 month. We might just completely irradicate a whole bunch of deceases. But of course it would come at a cost. Lockdowns are just one of the tools we have at our disposal. There's no doubt they work. Viruses don't spread telepathically. This in itself is nothing to be skeptical about. The only question is if the benefits outweigh the costs. A better name for the sub would perhaps have been: /r/lockdownpolicyskepticism

jMyles 5y ago
> What I'm saying is, is that lockdowns technically work. Keep everyone inside (including the delivery guy) and spreading will be reduced. Let's take this one step further. What if we could (hypothetically) isolate the entire planet for 1 month. We might just completely irradicate a whole bunch of deceases. I doubt we'd eradicate any disease which is a significant threat to humankind with a month of isolation, for two reasons: * In the case of many pathogens, there are extreme outliers who remain contagious for months (and of course with others, such as some retroviruses, it is normal to remain contagious indefinitely). * There are sufficient animal reservoirs for many pathogens (including SARS-CoV-2 and influenza and many other respiratory pathogens) that, no matter how long humans isolate, they'll be exposed rapidly upon emergence. > There's no doubt they work. I'm not sure how you can say this, when a giant chorus of experts from all of the world's foremost institutions of medical research have expressed exactly this doubt. I appreciate the exercise of your hypothetical, but even in the extreme case you present, it's far from clear that it will have an impact which reduces adverse outcomes. And in the real world, with its imperfections? I see no reason to believe that lockdowns have any positive impact, first- or second-order.
- bartimus 5y ago
  > I'm not sure how you can say this, when a giant chorus of experts from all of the world's foremost institutions of medical research have expressed exactly this doubt. There's no doubt. It's scientific fact that the virus cannot spread when its host doesn't occupy spaces that other people do. Besides it being a "rain is wet" kind of thing, it's also backup up by scientific research. The discussion is about what flavor of lockdown offers sufficient benefits that outweigh the costs. And if such flavors can be enforced.
  - jMyles 5y ago
    It seems that you are just ignoring my comment, and ignoring the overwhelming wealth of research and expert opinion on this topic. Do I understand correctly that you are saying, for example, that lockdowns will somehow eliminate a virus from animal reservoirs? Or stop spread within a household? Or ameliorate rare but important cases in which a host remains contagious for much longer than is typical? Horizontally interdiction is sometimes possible with pathogens with spread via the fecal-oral route, or STIs, or arboviruses, or hemorrhagic fevers, etc. But a highly contagious respiratory pathogen with robust, worldwide animal reservoirs? I do not agree that it is "scientific fact" (whatever that phrase even means) that mere separation of humans can achieve a reduction in adverse outcomes (setting aside, as you rightly acknowledge, the collateral effects).
    - bartimus 5y ago
      No, I'm ignoring where you're placing the goalposts. I agree with you that certain flavors of lockdowns do not provide sufficient benefits. But you seem to be under the impression that there exists no form of lockdown that works. That's simply not true. We've already seen various real-world examples of successful lockdowns. China did them. New Zealand did so successfully in 2020. Italy did them when they were first hit. Lockdowns simply work. The virus cannot spread between people that are isolated from each other. That's simple scientific fact. It's scientifically known how the virus transmits itself. Take a simple experiment. 2 rooms opposing sides of the planet. 1 person in each room. 1 person infected. 1 person uninfected. There's simply no way the infected person can infect the uninfected person. They would need to get into contact with each other to allow the virus to spread. If you keep the entire population locked up. If you implement a total curfew. Police the streets so that everyone stays inside. There is no doubt spreading will be reduced significantly. But we don't want to live in China. So the question isn't if lockdowns work. They work perfectly. The question is what form of lockdown outweighs the costs to warrant putting them in place.

jMyles 5y ago

> What I'm saying is, is that lockdowns technically work. Keep everyone inside (including the delivery guy) and spreading will be reduced. Let's take this one step further. What if we could (hypothetically) isolate the entire planet for 1 month. We might just completely irradicate a whole bunch of deceases. I doubt we'd eradicate any disease which is a significant threat to humankind with a month of isolation, for two reasons: * In the case of many pathogens, there are extreme outliers who remain contagious for months (and of course with others, such as some retroviruses, it is normal to remain contagious indefinitely). * There are sufficient animal reservoirs for many pathogens (including SARS-CoV-2 and influenza and many other respiratory pathogens) that, no matter how long humans isolate, they'll be exposed rapidly upon emergence. > There's no doubt they work. I'm not sure how you can say this, when a giant chorus of experts from all of the world's foremost institutions of medical research have expressed exactly this doubt. I appreciate the exercise of your hypothetical, but even in the extreme case you present, it's far from clear that it will have an impact which reduces adverse outcomes. And in the real world, with its imperfections? I see no reason to believe that lockdowns have any positive impact, first- or second-order.

bartimus 5y ago
> I'm not sure how you can say this, when a giant chorus of experts from all of the world's foremost institutions of medical research have expressed exactly this doubt. There's no doubt. It's scientific fact that the virus cannot spread when its host doesn't occupy spaces that other people do. Besides it being a "rain is wet" kind of thing, it's also backup up by scientific research. The discussion is about what flavor of lockdown offers sufficient benefits that outweigh the costs. And if such flavors can be enforced.
- jMyles 5y ago
  It seems that you are just ignoring my comment, and ignoring the overwhelming wealth of research and expert opinion on this topic. Do I understand correctly that you are saying, for example, that lockdowns will somehow eliminate a virus from animal reservoirs? Or stop spread within a household? Or ameliorate rare but important cases in which a host remains contagious for much longer than is typical? Horizontally interdiction is sometimes possible with pathogens with spread via the fecal-oral route, or STIs, or arboviruses, or hemorrhagic fevers, etc. But a highly contagious respiratory pathogen with robust, worldwide animal reservoirs? I do not agree that it is "scientific fact" (whatever that phrase even means) that mere separation of humans can achieve a reduction in adverse outcomes (setting aside, as you rightly acknowledge, the collateral effects).
  - bartimus 5y ago
    No, I'm ignoring where you're placing the goalposts. I agree with you that certain flavors of lockdowns do not provide sufficient benefits. But you seem to be under the impression that there exists no form of lockdown that works. That's simply not true. We've already seen various real-world examples of successful lockdowns. China did them. New Zealand did so successfully in 2020. Italy did them when they were first hit. Lockdowns simply work. The virus cannot spread between people that are isolated from each other. That's simple scientific fact. It's scientifically known how the virus transmits itself. Take a simple experiment. 2 rooms opposing sides of the planet. 1 person in each room. 1 person infected. 1 person uninfected. There's simply no way the infected person can infect the uninfected person. They would need to get into contact with each other to allow the virus to spread. If you keep the entire population locked up. If you implement a total curfew. Police the streets so that everyone stays inside. There is no doubt spreading will be reduced significantly. But we don't want to live in China. So the question isn't if lockdowns work. They work perfectly. The question is what form of lockdown outweighs the costs to warrant putting them in place.