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Besides the economic harm and potential developmental harm induced by closing schools for kids, I think lockdowns did incalculable social harm to society. It g

Besides the economic harm and potential developmental harm induced by closing schools for kids, I think lockdowns did incalculable social harm to society. It gave huge swaths of the population a grudge against the system, a chip on their shoulder that won't go away anytime soon. It burned up goodwill and trust for experts and politicians (who generally didn't have much to spare in the first place.) And coupling this with social isolation at the same time made a lot of people become frayed around the edges if not outright insane.

throw9away6 3y ago
The biggest harm came from the government grift and 30-40% inflation that came from all the printed money
Tagbert 3y ago
There already was a chip on the shoulder of a large number of American and that has been fed and grown by certain media and social channels specifically to undermine trust in institutions and checks on power. The lockdown (that wasn't locked down) was just more fuel on that well-feed fire.
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  > fed and grown by certain media and social channels specifically to Ideologues are always saying that anybody who doesn't agree with them must be brainwashed. They can't imagine that could actually choose to hold a different point of view from their own. Well let me tell you it ain't necessarily the case.
- UncleOxidant 3y ago
  Exactly. Initially "lockdowns" (and I hesitate to even call them that here in the US, we didn't have literal lockdowns like China had where they welded doors shut on apartments) were seen as positive - "flatten the curve to help our healthcare workers and keep our hospitals from being overrun". Pretty soon, though, they started getting very negative framing from right-wing social media, etc.
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    >and I hesitate to even call them that here in the US, we didn't have literal lockdowns like China had where they welded doors shut on apartments Were there even places that gave you a citation for being out "uneccessarily"? Every single "lockdown" I'm familiar with in the US was voluntary. There was a period where "non-essential" businesses were forced or encouraged to not operate, but even that still isn't a lockdown, and nobody was forced to stay in their home.
    - mike_hearn 3y ago
      Yes, the word lockdown means forced quarantine of the entire population by law (except "essential" workers). Were they really voluntary everywhere in the USA? For example, the UK is still processing a giant backlog of fines and imprisonments for people who violated lockdown rules, more than 28,000 so far. You were allowed to go for a walk alone or with members of your household once per day, and go to supermarkets, but nothing else.
      - dboreham 3y ago
        afaik, and certainly nowhere around where I live (Montana), there were no UK-style lockdowns in the US. Here we had: schools closed, theaters closed, and restaurants closed for indoors dining, and we had quarantine rules for people moving from out of state (that were not enforced). No restrictions on leaving your home, shopping, etc. No enforcement/fines.
      - fzeroracer 3y ago
        Yes? I lived in Texas during the outbreak. It was very much so optional.
      - triceratops 3y ago
        In the lefty commie California Bay Area where everyone "believes in the science", I was never, ever stopped by the lockdown police to ask why I was outside. I don't know why the UK issuing thousands of fines is relevant to this discussion.
- shapenamer 3y ago
  Always blows my mind when people suggest the only reason someone wouldn't trust the US government is because they've fallen for some misinformation. The US government does a great job of destroying trust all by itself.
  - refurb 3y ago
    It's really odd seeing comments on HN upvoted like: US government overthrew Iran democratic government -> "I know the US is so evil!" US government secretly injecting US citizens with radioactive material -> "My gosh, what's wrong with these people?" US government lies about reasons for Iraq War -> "One of the great crimes of the century" Then someone suggests, that just maybe, the lockdowns weren't based on science and that we should be concerned about the government overstepping and the comments are suddenly -> "Wow, did you forget your tinfoil hat?" or "Why don't you believe in science?" or "Think of the children" It's really weird. The US gets rightfully condemned for wrongdoings, but then suddenly any suggestion that they did it again is met with violent opposition.
    - kelipso 3y ago
      They are propagandised to the gills. Their brains will break and they probably won't be able to function anymore if they try to go through all the contradictions.
    - larvaetron 3y ago
      > It's really odd seeing comments on HN upvoted like: Not really. The HN user base has been taken over by big-corporation/big-government shills for years now.
ThrowAway1922A 3y ago
> I think lockdowns did incalculable social harm to society. I don't know about society, but this was the straw the broke the camels back for me. I have not been the same since, I don't think I ever will be. The first lockdown in my province was when things really started to go wrong for me mental health wise in a major way and it only got worse as they continued. What's really been maddening is that people get angry when I mention the affects it all had on me, they assume I'm taking a political stance first and foremost, they tell me it wasn't that bad, and they try to tell me I didn't experience what I experienced or do what I did. I used to think things could get better, but I really don't see a happy ending for myself anymore.
- UncleOxidant 3y ago
  And yet some of us actually liked that period of time where we were at home more, had more time to do things like bake bread, cook actual meals, read, etc. I think in my case my mental health declined for different reasons: As someone with health anxiety in the best of times, it started to dial up to 11. This was not even related to "lockdowns" - I had no desire to go anywhere where people congregated. The fact that there was a contagion out there and that there wasn't really any way out of it (until the vaccines showed up) was what led to many people's mental health decline.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- aakresearch 3y ago
  Am I looking in the mirror now? Can relate exactly to the T.
  - VK538FY 3y ago
    You're not alone. Today, every decision that I make is done with the objective of insulating myself non-violently from future coercive actions by the state similar to those during the coronacrisis. For example: expenses, domicile, career, voting. I know many similar people, formerly of all different political, philosophical and religious persuasions. My rough estimation is that this voting bloc is between 20 and 35% of western society. To those who disagree: although we are products of the same society, we have simply a fundamentally different view of liberty, happiness and risk tolerance.
esotericimpl 3y ago
Counterpoint, there were no lockdowns. There was like the initial 6 weeks to stop the spread. I still went to the grocery store, not locked down, i still went to the park, not locked down. What lockdowns? please be specific. When people say lockdown, they mean: "I was forced to wear a mask when i went to the grocery store and i felt like a loser" Thats the whole issue.
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  Businesses were closed, schools were closed. I had to stop my weekly routine of spending Saturdays in the public library because the doors were locked and books were only being lended through the website. The only way to meet and socialize with people was online. Even city parks were "capacity limited", they put police tape around the duck pond because ducks became an attractive nuisance. I had to queue up around the block to buy bread like it was the damn Soviet Union because the grocery store was only letting 10 people inside at a time. Call it what you like. You're arguing semantics when you say it wasn't a lock-down, but whatever you call it, it harmed people socially and psychologically. Humans aren't meant to be socially isolated.
  - Vrondi 3y ago
    How much of this went on was highly variable by state and county (sometimes even municipality). In some places, restaurants closed or became takeout only. In other places, they stayed open, but had to close any buffets. Schools and libraries closed or not different amounts of time in different places. Different universities took different degrees of action and distancing for different durations. Every single chain of stores took different measures (other than hanging up signs re-iterating whatever the state department of health said). The differences were highly variable. I have family in rural areas whose lives changed not one iota unless they had to travel for business to more urban areas. I have more urban people in my circle who were locked into their residence almost all the time, working and school from home. And then, there are the grocery store, food delivery, and health workers, who were working until they dropped, short staffed, in a sea of anxiety, many getting Covid multiple times. There was no single experience of lockdown status even within just the USA, let alone across countries.
rewmie 3y ago
> Besides the economic harm and potential developmental harm induced by closing schools for kids, I think lockdowns did incalculable social harm to society. Don't confuse correlation with causality. You had politicians abusing the covid pandemic with accusations of being a made-up conspiracy and in the process enticing hatred towards health officials who enacted standard public health policies, to the point that hardline militants even attacked them for suggesting that people should wash their hands. After over a year of this blend of propaganda permeating society, of course you'll have the most vulnerable segment of society, overly represented by the undereducated, building up an uneducated grudge against society in general and in particular against "the system", whatever they were told to believe that might be.
smrtinsert 3y ago
So we should have let ~3 million or so Americans die? Death lottery? I'm pretty sure goodwill would be pretty charred after the final numbers were in.
pengaru 3y ago
In the thick of it I felt like the lock-downs were probably necessary in the beginning of "flattening the curve". Many around my parts were being outright belligerent asshats when all we had was asking nicely that people distance and wear masks. A substantial subset of the population did the exact opposite, and caused all sorts of trouble being antagonistic even to people just trying to buy groceries. Then the lockdowns happened and it was like a light switch. I rarely saw the same kind of troublemakers acting out that way in public. Apparently once the US starts gutting its own economy to deal with an invisible threat, people start taking it more seriously. Until then it was like they thought it was all fake news, running around mocking the gullible masked suckers. But why they didn't end far sooner, like maybe once food supply chains were recovering and our shelves weren't empty anymore, is totally beyond my comprehension. It evolved from "flattening the curve" to "prevent as many deaths as possible at all costs", which IMNSHO is where it went all wrong.
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  Yeah, I was onboard for two weeks of "flatten the curve" but once it continued for months and beyond they lost me.
mikestew 3y ago
It gave huge swaths of the population a grudge against the system, a chip on their shoulder that won't go away anytime soon. It gave belligerent jackasses as stage upon which to perform. I suspect the grudge was long there, and the chip sat so long on their shoulder prior to the pandemic that it left a stain on many of their shirts. We should not cater to them. It burned up goodwill and trust for experts and politicians (who generally didn't have much to spare in the first place.) Again, just an excuse. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater because people that know far more about the subject than you do got a few things wrong, well, that's just being immature and/or supporting a narrative. We should not cater to them, either. But at least we can agree that closing the schools was a bad idea.
wizofaus 3y ago
You can agree with that and still accept that without lockdowns the outcome would have been far far worse. And it's not like nothing good came out of lockdowns either, particularly the much greater willingness of employers to embrace remote work.
twoodfin 3y ago
My personal chip developed when—almost overnight—gathering in large groups went from something reckless akin to drunk driving to an essential activity. Do what you want, everything has tradeoff and risks. But don’t pretend science is normative until it becomes inconvenient.

throw9away6 3y ago

The biggest harm came from the government grift and 30-40% inflation that came from all the printed money

Tagbert 3y ago

There already was a chip on the shoulder of a large number of American and that has been fed and grown by certain media and social channels specifically to undermine trust in institutions and checks on power. The lockdown (that wasn't locked down) was just more fuel on that well-feed fire.

mcpackieh 3y ago
> fed and grown by certain media and social channels specifically to Ideologues are always saying that anybody who doesn't agree with them must be brainwashed. They can't imagine that could actually choose to hold a different point of view from their own. Well let me tell you it ain't necessarily the case.
UncleOxidant 3y ago
Exactly. Initially "lockdowns" (and I hesitate to even call them that here in the US, we didn't have literal lockdowns like China had where they welded doors shut on apartments) were seen as positive - "flatten the curve to help our healthcare workers and keep our hospitals from being overrun". Pretty soon, though, they started getting very negative framing from right-wing social media, etc.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  >and I hesitate to even call them that here in the US, we didn't have literal lockdowns like China had where they welded doors shut on apartments Were there even places that gave you a citation for being out "uneccessarily"? Every single "lockdown" I'm familiar with in the US was voluntary. There was a period where "non-essential" businesses were forced or encouraged to not operate, but even that still isn't a lockdown, and nobody was forced to stay in their home.
  - mike_hearn 3y ago
    Yes, the word lockdown means forced quarantine of the entire population by law (except "essential" workers). Were they really voluntary everywhere in the USA? For example, the UK is still processing a giant backlog of fines and imprisonments for people who violated lockdown rules, more than 28,000 so far. You were allowed to go for a walk alone or with members of your household once per day, and go to supermarkets, but nothing else.
    - dboreham 3y ago
      afaik, and certainly nowhere around where I live (Montana), there were no UK-style lockdowns in the US. Here we had: schools closed, theaters closed, and restaurants closed for indoors dining, and we had quarantine rules for people moving from out of state (that were not enforced). No restrictions on leaving your home, shopping, etc. No enforcement/fines.
    - fzeroracer 3y ago
      Yes? I lived in Texas during the outbreak. It was very much so optional.
    - triceratops 3y ago
      In the lefty commie California Bay Area where everyone "believes in the science", I was never, ever stopped by the lockdown police to ask why I was outside. I don't know why the UK issuing thousands of fines is relevant to this discussion.
shapenamer 3y ago
Always blows my mind when people suggest the only reason someone wouldn't trust the US government is because they've fallen for some misinformation. The US government does a great job of destroying trust all by itself.
- refurb 3y ago
  It's really odd seeing comments on HN upvoted like: US government overthrew Iran democratic government -> "I know the US is so evil!" US government secretly injecting US citizens with radioactive material -> "My gosh, what's wrong with these people?" US government lies about reasons for Iraq War -> "One of the great crimes of the century" Then someone suggests, that just maybe, the lockdowns weren't based on science and that we should be concerned about the government overstepping and the comments are suddenly -> "Wow, did you forget your tinfoil hat?" or "Why don't you believe in science?" or "Think of the children" It's really weird. The US gets rightfully condemned for wrongdoings, but then suddenly any suggestion that they did it again is met with violent opposition.
  - kelipso 3y ago
    They are propagandised to the gills. Their brains will break and they probably won't be able to function anymore if they try to go through all the contradictions.
  - larvaetron 3y ago
    > It's really odd seeing comments on HN upvoted like: Not really. The HN user base has been taken over by big-corporation/big-government shills for years now.

ThrowAway1922A 3y ago

> I think lockdowns did incalculable social harm to society. I don't know about society, but this was the straw the broke the camels back for me. I have not been the same since, I don't think I ever will be. The first lockdown in my province was when things really started to go wrong for me mental health wise in a major way and it only got worse as they continued. What's really been maddening is that people get angry when I mention the affects it all had on me, they assume I'm taking a political stance first and foremost, they tell me it wasn't that bad, and they try to tell me I didn't experience what I experienced or do what I did. I used to think things could get better, but I really don't see a happy ending for myself anymore.

UncleOxidant 3y ago
And yet some of us actually liked that period of time where we were at home more, had more time to do things like bake bread, cook actual meals, read, etc. I think in my case my mental health declined for different reasons: As someone with health anxiety in the best of times, it started to dial up to 11. This was not even related to "lockdowns" - I had no desire to go anywhere where people congregated. The fact that there was a contagion out there and that there wasn't really any way out of it (until the vaccines showed up) was what led to many people's mental health decline.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
aakresearch 3y ago
Am I looking in the mirror now? Can relate exactly to the T.
- VK538FY 3y ago
  You're not alone. Today, every decision that I make is done with the objective of insulating myself non-violently from future coercive actions by the state similar to those during the coronacrisis. For example: expenses, domicile, career, voting. I know many similar people, formerly of all different political, philosophical and religious persuasions. My rough estimation is that this voting bloc is between 20 and 35% of western society. To those who disagree: although we are products of the same society, we have simply a fundamentally different view of liberty, happiness and risk tolerance.

esotericimpl 3y ago

Counterpoint, there were no lockdowns. There was like the initial 6 weeks to stop the spread. I still went to the grocery store, not locked down, i still went to the park, not locked down. What lockdowns? please be specific. When people say lockdown, they mean: "I was forced to wear a mask when i went to the grocery store and i felt like a loser" Thats the whole issue.

mcpackieh 3y ago
Businesses were closed, schools were closed. I had to stop my weekly routine of spending Saturdays in the public library because the doors were locked and books were only being lended through the website. The only way to meet and socialize with people was online. Even city parks were "capacity limited", they put police tape around the duck pond because ducks became an attractive nuisance. I had to queue up around the block to buy bread like it was the damn Soviet Union because the grocery store was only letting 10 people inside at a time. Call it what you like. You're arguing semantics when you say it wasn't a lock-down, but whatever you call it, it harmed people socially and psychologically. Humans aren't meant to be socially isolated.
- Vrondi 3y ago
  How much of this went on was highly variable by state and county (sometimes even municipality). In some places, restaurants closed or became takeout only. In other places, they stayed open, but had to close any buffets. Schools and libraries closed or not different amounts of time in different places. Different universities took different degrees of action and distancing for different durations. Every single chain of stores took different measures (other than hanging up signs re-iterating whatever the state department of health said). The differences were highly variable. I have family in rural areas whose lives changed not one iota unless they had to travel for business to more urban areas. I have more urban people in my circle who were locked into their residence almost all the time, working and school from home. And then, there are the grocery store, food delivery, and health workers, who were working until they dropped, short staffed, in a sea of anxiety, many getting Covid multiple times. There was no single experience of lockdown status even within just the USA, let alone across countries.

rewmie 3y ago

> Besides the economic harm and potential developmental harm induced by closing schools for kids, I think lockdowns did incalculable social harm to society. Don't confuse correlation with causality. You had politicians abusing the covid pandemic with accusations of being a made-up conspiracy and in the process enticing hatred towards health officials who enacted standard public health policies, to the point that hardline militants even attacked them for suggesting that people should wash their hands. After over a year of this blend of propaganda permeating society, of course you'll have the most vulnerable segment of society, overly represented by the undereducated, building up an uneducated grudge against society in general and in particular against "the system", whatever they were told to believe that might be.

smrtinsert 3y ago

So we should have let ~3 million or so Americans die? Death lottery? I'm pretty sure goodwill would be pretty charred after the final numbers were in.

pengaru 3y ago

In the thick of it I felt like the lock-downs were probably necessary in the beginning of "flattening the curve". Many around my parts were being outright belligerent asshats when all we had was asking nicely that people distance and wear masks. A substantial subset of the population did the exact opposite, and caused all sorts of trouble being antagonistic even to people just trying to buy groceries. Then the lockdowns happened and it was like a light switch. I rarely saw the same kind of troublemakers acting out that way in public. Apparently once the US starts gutting its own economy to deal with an invisible threat, people start taking it more seriously. Until then it was like they thought it was all fake news, running around mocking the gullible masked suckers. But why they didn't end far sooner, like maybe once food supply chains were recovering and our shelves weren't empty anymore, is totally beyond my comprehension. It evolved from "flattening the curve" to "prevent as many deaths as possible at all costs", which IMNSHO is where it went all wrong.

mcpackieh 3y ago
Yeah, I was onboard for two weeks of "flatten the curve" but once it continued for months and beyond they lost me.

mikestew 3y ago

It gave huge swaths of the population a grudge against the system, a chip on their shoulder that won't go away anytime soon. It gave belligerent jackasses as stage upon which to perform. I suspect the grudge was long there, and the chip sat so long on their shoulder prior to the pandemic that it left a stain on many of their shirts. We should not cater to them. It burned up goodwill and trust for experts and politicians (who generally didn't have much to spare in the first place.) Again, just an excuse. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater because people that know far more about the subject than you do got a few things wrong, well, that's just being immature and/or supporting a narrative. We should not cater to them, either. But at least we can agree that closing the schools was a bad idea.

wizofaus 3y ago

You can agree with that and still accept that without lockdowns the outcome would have been far far worse. And it's not like nothing good came out of lockdowns either, particularly the much greater willingness of employers to embrace remote work.

twoodfin 3y ago

My personal chip developed when—almost overnight—gathering in large groups went from something reckless akin to drunk driving to an essential activity. Do what you want, everything has tradeoff and risks. But don’t pretend science is normative until it becomes inconvenient.