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> his main point was that isolation should have been targeted at the most vulnerable rather than applied nationwide. And you do not notice what the problems ar

> his main point was that isolation should have been targeted at the most vulnerable rather than applied nationwide. And you do not notice what the problems are with that solution compared to using lockdowns to keep spread under control until countermeasures (vaccines) are available?

Manuel_D 4y ago
COVID's risk is not even remotely even across age. The overwhelming majority of the people who would potentially die from an infection are the elderly. His plan called for intense lockdown for elderly people and those with significant comorbidities. The overwhelming majority who are not at risk - vaccine or not - do not need to isolate.
- fnordpiglet 4y ago
  You don’t consider other negative long term outcomes like long COVID to be a broad concern?
  - Manuel_D 4y ago
    Even with nearly two years of lockdowns it's estimated that over 70% of the population has gotten COVID at least once. Bhattacharya's whole point is that once it became clear that the virus was going to become endemic, lockdowns are just delaying infection and not preventing them. Thus the same number of long covid cases would have happened.
  - Akronymus 4y ago
    I assume less of a concern than the mental/developmental problems that came about because of 2 years of lockdowns.
- tmpz22 4y ago
  What about overloading of hospital systems? Wasn't a major point of the lockdown that these systems were at a breaking point and any increase in patients risked catastrophe in certain places?
  - Manuel_D 4y ago
    People who weren't elderly or didn't have significant co-morbidities rarely ended up in the hospital for COVID. Thus the "flatten the curve" argument doesn't make sense for that population. This is the basis of Bhattacharya's thesis: focus the isolation efforts on the elderly people who actually end up in hospitals when they get infected, not just blindly applying lockdowns across all of society.

Manuel_D 4y ago

COVID's risk is not even remotely even across age. The overwhelming majority of the people who would potentially die from an infection are the elderly. His plan called for intense lockdown for elderly people and those with significant comorbidities. The overwhelming majority who are not at risk - vaccine or not - do not need to isolate.

fnordpiglet 4y ago
You don’t consider other negative long term outcomes like long COVID to be a broad concern?
- Manuel_D 4y ago
  Even with nearly two years of lockdowns it's estimated that over 70% of the population has gotten COVID at least once. Bhattacharya's whole point is that once it became clear that the virus was going to become endemic, lockdowns are just delaying infection and not preventing them. Thus the same number of long covid cases would have happened.
- Akronymus 4y ago
  I assume less of a concern than the mental/developmental problems that came about because of 2 years of lockdowns.
tmpz22 4y ago
What about overloading of hospital systems? Wasn't a major point of the lockdown that these systems were at a breaking point and any increase in patients risked catastrophe in certain places?
- Manuel_D 4y ago
  People who weren't elderly or didn't have significant co-morbidities rarely ended up in the hospital for COVID. Thus the "flatten the curve" argument doesn't make sense for that population. This is the basis of Bhattacharya's thesis: focus the isolation efforts on the elderly people who actually end up in hospitals when they get infected, not just blindly applying lockdowns across all of society.