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Of course they did. The alternative was to just keep calm and carry on, like for every other virus outbreak. The idea that COVID required unique measures is not

Of course they did. The alternative was to just keep calm and carry on, like for every other virus outbreak. The idea that COVID required unique measures is not true and had been proven untrue many times in many ways. The correct response was the traditional one: let doctors get on with it and otherwise continue with normal life.

disgruntledphd2 3y ago
The hospitalisation rate made this implausible. Sure, we could have kept calm and carried on, but the health care system would have collapsed. It almost did in a bunch of European countries, including mine. And that's with the lockdowns.
- lazide 3y ago
  Yeah. There were areas in the US (parts of Texas, Los Angeles County, New York) where the system did start to collapse, even with lockdowns and warnings. It likely would have been much worse without them. It likely would have been much better if folks had taken the warnings more seriously. Most didn't. Oh how we forget! I had a business acquaintance in Florida that went from 'COVID is all liberal propaganda', to literally almost dead in the hospital (they had to induce a Coma in him for 2 weeks), to 'I almost died, holy fuck, it's real' all in the space of a month last year. And an in-law that almost died of it a year and a half ago in Spain, requiring a week in the ICU. He kept insisting it wasn't COVID even after his family had all tested positive (and he refused being tested) until he woke up in the middle of the night and realized he was dying (his words). Luckily they had figured out the anti-inflammatory treatment at that point, or he likely would have been dead.
- revelio 3y ago
  It wouldn't. Governments said the hospitals were collapsing because they needed to justify their actions, whilst simultaneously publishing dashboards that showed plenty of free capacity. The problem is that most COVID cases in hospitals were of people who were infected in hospital itself. They weren't admitted for it. Just looking at "covid cases in hospitals" would therefore be misleading. That was never highlighted by the media or government officials because it was embarrassing but sometimes dashboards would reveal it. As an example look at Switzerland's data. It's useful because it was still being updated as recently as May. https://www.covid19.admin.ch/en/hosp-capacity/total?hospCapZoomDev=2020-03-30_2023-05-01 https://www.covid19.admin.ch/en/hosp-capacity/total?hospCapZ... As you can see, it made no difference whatsoever and actually at the start of the dataset the hospitals are way under utilized. Some countries have worse hospital systems than Switzerland, and regularly experience shortages of care even in normal times. But this example shows that for a good healthcare system COVID could be handled easily without even coming close to running out of capacity.
  - disgruntledphd2 3y ago
    Switzerland have like one of the best numbers of beds per person in the OECD. Ireland (where I live) have one of the worst, and I followed the numbers religiously for most of Covid. Without the lockdown/other measures to reduce spread, the health care system would have collapsed multiple times (hence why we had some of the longest lockdowns in the world). Like, my mother had cancer and suffered massively due to the lockdowns (I firmly believe it was a large contributor to her death last year) but that doesn't mean that they weren't necessary, at least in Ireland.
    - revelio 3y ago
      You had lockdowns because politicians were following the instructions of corrupt academics. Lockdowns made no impact on hospital load (can you determine the dates and times of interventions by looking at the graphs I just linked?). Nor did they have any impact on death rates or anything else. > the health care system would have collapsed You were told that but the Swiss were told that too. In fact they were told the hospitals were collapsing, even as their own dashboard said the exact opposite. Governments lied about COVID, all the time. Lockdowns had no impact on spread, and there's a ton of studies showing that by now, just go searching for them on Google Scholar. But you don't even need studies. Just eyeball the graphs of various countries and try to spot the impact on case numbers of these supposedly mandatory interventions. There isn't any. SARS-CoV-2 like all coronaviruses spreads like a gas and these viral clouds can hang around and travel long distances in the air. Lockdowns are meaningless given such a modality of spread.

disgruntledphd2 3y ago

The hospitalisation rate made this implausible. Sure, we could have kept calm and carried on, but the health care system would have collapsed. It almost did in a bunch of European countries, including mine. And that's with the lockdowns.

lazide 3y ago
Yeah. There were areas in the US (parts of Texas, Los Angeles County, New York) where the system did start to collapse, even with lockdowns and warnings. It likely would have been much worse without them. It likely would have been much better if folks had taken the warnings more seriously. Most didn't. Oh how we forget! I had a business acquaintance in Florida that went from 'COVID is all liberal propaganda', to literally almost dead in the hospital (they had to induce a Coma in him for 2 weeks), to 'I almost died, holy fuck, it's real' all in the space of a month last year. And an in-law that almost died of it a year and a half ago in Spain, requiring a week in the ICU. He kept insisting it wasn't COVID even after his family had all tested positive (and he refused being tested) until he woke up in the middle of the night and realized he was dying (his words). Luckily they had figured out the anti-inflammatory treatment at that point, or he likely would have been dead.
revelio 3y ago
It wouldn't. Governments said the hospitals were collapsing because they needed to justify their actions, whilst simultaneously publishing dashboards that showed plenty of free capacity. The problem is that most COVID cases in hospitals were of people who were infected in hospital itself. They weren't admitted for it. Just looking at "covid cases in hospitals" would therefore be misleading. That was never highlighted by the media or government officials because it was embarrassing but sometimes dashboards would reveal it. As an example look at Switzerland's data. It's useful because it was still being updated as recently as May. https://www.covid19.admin.ch/en/hosp-capacity/total?hospCapZoomDev=2020-03-30_2023-05-01 https://www.covid19.admin.ch/en/hosp-capacity/total?hospCapZ... As you can see, it made no difference whatsoever and actually at the start of the dataset the hospitals are way under utilized. Some countries have worse hospital systems than Switzerland, and regularly experience shortages of care even in normal times. But this example shows that for a good healthcare system COVID could be handled easily without even coming close to running out of capacity.
- disgruntledphd2 3y ago
  Switzerland have like one of the best numbers of beds per person in the OECD. Ireland (where I live) have one of the worst, and I followed the numbers religiously for most of Covid. Without the lockdown/other measures to reduce spread, the health care system would have collapsed multiple times (hence why we had some of the longest lockdowns in the world). Like, my mother had cancer and suffered massively due to the lockdowns (I firmly believe it was a large contributor to her death last year) but that doesn't mean that they weren't necessary, at least in Ireland.
  - revelio 3y ago
    You had lockdowns because politicians were following the instructions of corrupt academics. Lockdowns made no impact on hospital load (can you determine the dates and times of interventions by looking at the graphs I just linked?). Nor did they have any impact on death rates or anything else. > the health care system would have collapsed You were told that but the Swiss were told that too. In fact they were told the hospitals were collapsing, even as their own dashboard said the exact opposite. Governments lied about COVID, all the time. Lockdowns had no impact on spread, and there's a ton of studies showing that by now, just go searching for them on Google Scholar. But you don't even need studies. Just eyeball the graphs of various countries and try to spot the impact on case numbers of these supposedly mandatory interventions. There isn't any. SARS-CoV-2 like all coronaviruses spreads like a gas and these viral clouds can hang around and travel long distances in the air. Lockdowns are meaningless given such a modality of spread.