2 ms·
>However, if lockdowns have a notable effect, we should see this effect regardless of the timing, and we should identify this effect more correctly by excluding
by pasabagi 5y ago
>However, if lockdowns have a notable effect, we should see this effect regardless of the timing, and we should identify this effect more correctly by excluding studies that exclusively analyze timing
This seems like a really weird take. The entire concept of a lockdown is solely about timing, since the whole purpose of the exercise is to reduce the R value in order to buy time for healthcare services.
- Izkata 5y ago> in order to buy time for healthcare services. By that part alone I'd call them a total failure: Healthcare didn't take advantage of it to prepare, instead the lockdowns just kept going on. If anything the opposite has happened, with hospitals firing nurses and ending up with reduced capacity.
- pasabagi 5y agoI think it depends on which lockdowns you are talking about. I've been living in Germany, where lockdowns seem to happen at the time you expect them to happen (when cases start to spike), and the deaths-per-capita are about half that of the UK, where they happened at the last minute (after cases had peaked). In countries like Korea, Japan, and China, they had very early lockdowns, and have had basically negligible Covid impact. I would really like it if everybody sat down and started consciously copying the states with approaches that worked, rather than trying to solve the problem from first principles. Public health is complicated, but what's not complicated is that some states are obviously way better at it, and these successes should be emulated.