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This is massively revisionist. "Shutting down overnight" was pretty much the response across the nation in March 2020. This was based on the information availab

This is massively revisionist. "Shutting down overnight" was pretty much the response across the nation in March 2020. This was based on the information available at the time, and as things evolved, things changed. Everything after was basically differences in how quickly things opened back up (and what things, in what order, with what restrictions). And mass support for reopening rapidly with no restrictions wasn't there even in Florida or Texas early on - consider the sub-$60M box office that Tenet brought in. Theaters were open where allowed (hell, they were even open in Orange County in SoCal, not just in Florida), but nobody wanted to go because they were looking at the transmission and hospitalization data themselves and waiting for things to settle down and for vaccines to come out. Same with how conferences and events were being canceled before official government action in March 2020. Economic damage was done at least as much, if not more, by individual behaviors as official policy. And can you blame people for that? Almost as many people died of Covid in the US before the vaccines as after the vaccines in 2021, despite there being way less of a return to normalcy by that point - imagine the number of deaths (and knock-on deaths from the overwhelmed health system) that would've happened if nobody had changed their behavior. Claiming something like that you could've fixed homelessness in California - which was a rapidly growing problem pre-Covid - by never "officially" shutting down in March 2020 is ludicrous.

jacquesm 4y ago
There are only a few countries that really shut down (some only regional): New Zealand, Japan, Australia and China (others?). This one graph shows how effective it was and if we'd all done that the difference would be enormous, even for the countries that did shut down. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_by_country_and_territory#/media/File:COVID-19_Outbreak_World_Map_Total_Deaths_per_Capita.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_by_country_a...
- majormajor 4y ago
  Without a really deep dive I'm not certain the island-country numbers of Australia or Japan would be achievable in the US, but if I use Canada as a "certainly achievable standin" I would state my position as "unconvinced that the marginal benefits of additional restrictions initially + for longer would be worth it" but also "entirely convinced that if the US hadn't taken the steps it did, both individually and governmentally, that number would be many multiples higher." The "none of this was necessary" position is just ultra-revisionist and often makes arguments as if today's variant and transmission environment is the environment that was in place in March 2020. It also ignores that individuals will make their own choices to change their behavior in the face of a new threat. "Not massively damaging some sectors of the economy" was never an option.
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    Without global coordination it's a wash. With global coordination it might have made a difference.
  - atweiden 4y ago
    > Without a really deep dive I'm not certain the island-country numbers of Australia or Japan would be achievable in the US If “being an island nation” was all it took to eradicate Covid, why was Hawaii unable to do so? It’s clear border security was a rather important factor. And can you think of a more essential responsibility of government than securing the borders? Gentle reminder that Australia is an “island country” the size of the continental US with several densely-populated major cities.

jacquesm 4y ago

There are only a few countries that really shut down (some only regional): New Zealand, Japan, Australia and China (others?). This one graph shows how effective it was and if we'd all done that the difference would be enormous, even for the countries that did shut down. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_by_country_and_territory#/media/File:COVID-19_Outbreak_World_Map_Total_Deaths_per_Capita.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_by_country_a...

majormajor 4y ago
Without a really deep dive I'm not certain the island-country numbers of Australia or Japan would be achievable in the US, but if I use Canada as a "certainly achievable standin" I would state my position as "unconvinced that the marginal benefits of additional restrictions initially + for longer would be worth it" but also "entirely convinced that if the US hadn't taken the steps it did, both individually and governmentally, that number would be many multiples higher." The "none of this was necessary" position is just ultra-revisionist and often makes arguments as if today's variant and transmission environment is the environment that was in place in March 2020. It also ignores that individuals will make their own choices to change their behavior in the face of a new threat. "Not massively damaging some sectors of the economy" was never an option.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  Without global coordination it's a wash. With global coordination it might have made a difference.
- atweiden 4y ago
  > Without a really deep dive I'm not certain the island-country numbers of Australia or Japan would be achievable in the US If “being an island nation” was all it took to eradicate Covid, why was Hawaii unable to do so? It’s clear border security was a rather important factor. And can you think of a more essential responsibility of government than securing the borders? Gentle reminder that Australia is an “island country” the size of the continental US with several densely-populated major cities.