2 ms·

> * Or having 0.3% of your population die, and several times that disabled? Aaaaand, also lock down for many, many more human-hours than China has. The thing

> * Or having 0.3% of your population die, and several times that disabled? Aaaaand, also lock down for many, many more human-hours than China has. The thing that drives me crazy about the 'liberty vs safety' debate in the west is that, by and large, the west has achieved neither. If you want to avoid lockdowns, you either have to have zero covid, mass vaccination, or accept extremely high death tolls, and by that, I mean almost every single person who went to an ICU in the duration of the pandemic dies in a packed waiting room instead of recovering. There is no fourth option. Zero-covid through tough restrictions, followed by vaccine rollout, preserves both liberty and safety, and I hope that next time round (and there will be a next time) people will realize that.

blagie 4y ago
I agree with most everything, except I'm not quite sold on vaccines as the a silver bullet: 1) We don't quite understand the impact of a new disease on the vaccinated. /Many/ diseases have debilitating long-term effects. Some vaccines -- for example rabies -- prevent that. Others don't. 2) We don't know how well vaccines will work for future disease. I view them more as part of a comprehensive solution. What I would have liked to see with COVID, and with future diseases, is a sufficient zero-COVID policy everywhere to stop the disease, as happened with smaller outbreaks in recent years. My general conclusion is that we ought to have: - Enough manufacturing capacity to provide everyone in the world with high-filtration masks, disinfecting wipes, plastic gloves, and similar basic supplies - Enough vaccine manufacturing capacity to be able to roll out an mRNA vaccine to 7 billion people in a few months at most - Enough manufacturing capacity to be able to spin out things like antigen and PCR tests quickly - Some plan for supply chains to get everyone food if we need another lockdown - Plans for contact tracing, ideally with practice drills. - Perhaps, some plan for how our economy doesn't implode on a lockdown. This went surprisingly well with covid19, but I feel a little bit by fluke. ... and similar types of emergency precautions.
- pasabagi 4y ago
  Well, I guess the (somewhat cynical) calculus most politicians/bureaucrats make is that however many people become ill in the long term, it's probably less expensive than lockdowns (even if lockdowns are less expensive than health system collapse and mass death). As much as the long term health implications of covid are unfolding, so to are the economic effects: we're in a really weird and volatile economic situation, and things that move the needle on basics (food, fuel, etc) kill a lot of people.

blagie 4y ago

I agree with most everything, except I'm not quite sold on vaccines as the a silver bullet: 1) We don't quite understand the impact of a new disease on the vaccinated. /Many/ diseases have debilitating long-term effects. Some vaccines -- for example rabies -- prevent that. Others don't. 2) We don't know how well vaccines will work for future disease. I view them more as part of a comprehensive solution. What I would have liked to see with COVID, and with future diseases, is a sufficient zero-COVID policy everywhere to stop the disease, as happened with smaller outbreaks in recent years. My general conclusion is that we ought to have: - Enough manufacturing capacity to provide everyone in the world with high-filtration masks, disinfecting wipes, plastic gloves, and similar basic supplies - Enough vaccine manufacturing capacity to be able to roll out an mRNA vaccine to 7 billion people in a few months at most - Enough manufacturing capacity to be able to spin out things like antigen and PCR tests quickly - Some plan for supply chains to get everyone food if we need another lockdown - Plans for contact tracing, ideally with practice drills. - Perhaps, some plan for how our economy doesn't implode on a lockdown. This went surprisingly well with covid19, but I feel a little bit by fluke. ... and similar types of emergency precautions.

pasabagi 4y ago
Well, I guess the (somewhat cynical) calculus most politicians/bureaucrats make is that however many people become ill in the long term, it's probably less expensive than lockdowns (even if lockdowns are less expensive than health system collapse and mass death). As much as the long term health implications of covid are unfolding, so to are the economic effects: we're in a really weird and volatile economic situation, and things that move the needle on basics (food, fuel, etc) kill a lot of people.