5 ms·

While obvious at the time to anyone with a brain, it's now beyond obvious that lockdowns were an abject disaster. Massive economic damage that's continuing to l

by 0xy 3y ago

While obvious at the time to anyone with a brain, it's now beyond obvious that lockdowns were an abject disaster. Massive economic damage that's continuing to linger, irreversible damage to children and an entire lost generation raised during the lockdowns. How could anyone but the most hysterical hypochondriacs still support them?

doublemint2203 3y ago
they empirically saved lives and were based on the best available scientific recommendations at the time. Their factual basis is not a matter of opinion. Whether the opportunity cost of risking lives outweighed the cost of re-opening, second lockdowns, etc. is a whole different topic, but if you're speaking to the first "two week lockdown" then it is no question.
- Mountain_Skies 3y ago
  >were based on the best available scientific recommendations at the time That's a statement of faith. >Their factual basis is not a matter of opinion. Another statement of faith.
  - bodhi_mind 3y ago
    >That's a statement of faith. Aren’t all decisions based on probability and statistics (science and medicine) “faith” based?
- wyager 3y ago
  > were based on the best available scientific recommendations at the time "Best" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in this sentence. A more objective description might be "most widely expressed".
doublemint2203 3y ago
further, if your last question is not rhetorical, I support them in retrospect because I view things from an apolitical lens and think it was the best attempt at a societal cooperation to save lives. Yes, there were negative results, but there were also overflowing hospitals in 99.9% of the country
- wyager 3y ago
  > there were also overflowing hospitals in 99.9% of the country The hysteria over "overflowing hospitals" was mostly due to people not understanding the base rate of hospital occupancy, or how hospitals account for occupancy limits in general. In reality, utilization of the medical system collapsed because people were scared to go to the hospital for routine medicine. Whether that was net positive or negative depends on how iatrogenic risks interact with the selection effects in play at the time.
  - bryanlarsen 3y ago
    Yes, the hospitals were quieter during the initial lockdown. However peak COVID deaths and hospital overload was in 2022. Our local hospital experienced 2 nurse suicides in 2022.
- 0xy 3y ago
  If you wanted to protect hospitals, then why were 15 year olds locked down and not primarily old and obese people (the vast, vast majority of the risk). 15 years old took the brunt of the lockdowns yet had almost zero risk from the virus. Why is that? Shouldn't the people at actual risk of the virus shelter themselves? The difference in risk between a healthy 15 year old and an obese 85 year old is orders of magnitude different. The virus might as well be the common cold to the former.
- TMWNN 3y ago
  >but there were also overflowing hospitals in 99.9% of the country Italian and New York hospitals were overwhelmed because a) both places put sick elderly into old age homes. (42% of US COVID19 deaths in 2020 occurred in old age homes!) b) Like elsewhere early on, doctors put everyone serious onto ventilators in a mistaken belief that they should treat patients like they do ARDS cases based on blood oxygen levels. This damaged healthy lung sacs and caused long-term dependence on mechanical respiration that doctors found almost impossible to wean patients from, and other side effects like deep vein thrombosis; Nick Cordero is an example. (This article from April 2020 <https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/08/doctors-say-ventilators-overused-for-covid-19/ https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/08/doctors-say-ventilators-...> was completely vindicated in retrospect.) Neither happened after the first few months. And no, none of those field hospitals built in parking lots and stadiums everywhere were used. In Wales, for example, Millennium Stadium was converted into a temporary field hospital with 300 beds and capacity to expand to 2000 beds. It was such a big deal that a public contest was held to name it Dragon's Heart Hospital <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon%27s_Heart_Hospital https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon%27s_Heart_Hospital>. However, said hospital never had more than 46 patients at one time, and was closed in six weeks for lack of use! Even in NYC, which really did see overloaded hospitals briefly in March-April 2020, USNS Comfort treated a total of 179 patients. USNS Mercy treated a total of 77 patients in LA.
micromacrofoot 3y ago
They're not lost, they're still here. We could be making efforts as a country to help them catch up and at least make the gap smaller... it's not impossible. People love to decry the lockdowns, but we knew next to nothing about the virus at the time. No vaccines. A million people died in the US died from Covid. What would have been the acceptable trade-off for you? would 2 million deaths be fine if kids were in school? that's not the kind of math I'm comfortable doing.
- 0xy 3y ago
  >A million people died in the US died from Covid. This claim is absurd and invented. Firstly, it takes two seconds to discover that the reporting requirements for Covid "deaths" do not say that Covid must be the primary cause of death, or even a contributing factor. Reporting standards stated clearly that anyone who dies and happens to also have Covid can be included as a "Covid death". There are numerous cases of this occurring with people who were already terminally ill, people who had a motorcycle accident and other absurdities. When the federal government financially incentivizes hospitals and medical institutions to inflate numbers that are loosely monitored, all of them will have their finger on the scale. There's documented evidence. >we knew next to nothing about the virus at the time We knew that lockdowns would destroy the economy, destroy the lives of children and irreversibly steal an entire generation. We also knew that Covid affected primarily old and severely unwell people, with obesity and other serious health conditions. With this in mind, why wasn't the lockdown aimed at the old and the obese, the people who were seriously at risk? A 15 year old had functionally zero risk yet took the entire brunt of the lockdowns. A 85 year old with obesity has massively inflated risk yet trades nothing off (they've lived their lives already). Trading the lives of young people to save old people is despicable. When a boat is sinking, the first people off are children. Why weren't children prioritized here?
  - micromacrofoot 3y ago
    So how many people do you think really died from covid? 500,000? 100,000? how many more would have died without the lockdowns? In your eyes, how many more deaths would have been acceptable if the economy would be stronger today? We spent nearly $2 trillion in Iraq for a decade. 9/11 was the catalyst, and 3,000 people died. I'm not saying you're wrong for being frustrated. But to me these are all separate problems. The lockdowns almost certainly provided additional death. I think that's a noble cause. It wasn't only the elderly, even with lockdowns thousand of kids lost parents. No amount of being in school can fix that. Now where's the $2 trillion for tutoring these kids and helping them catch up? that's what I'm mad about.
dang 3y ago
Please make your substantive points without flamebait or name-calling. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. It's also in your interest because it will make your comments more persuasive.
postalrat 3y ago
Many people are doing the wfh thing barely working yet still getting a paycheck. Why would they complain?

by 0xy 3y ago

doublemint2203 3y ago

they empirically saved lives and were based on the best available scientific recommendations at the time. Their factual basis is not a matter of opinion. Whether the opportunity cost of risking lives outweighed the cost of re-opening, second lockdowns, etc. is a whole different topic, but if you're speaking to the first "two week lockdown" then it is no question.

Mountain_Skies 3y ago
>were based on the best available scientific recommendations at the time That's a statement of faith. >Their factual basis is not a matter of opinion. Another statement of faith.
- bodhi_mind 3y ago
  >That's a statement of faith. Aren’t all decisions based on probability and statistics (science and medicine) “faith” based?
wyager 3y ago
> were based on the best available scientific recommendations at the time "Best" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in this sentence. A more objective description might be "most widely expressed".

doublemint2203 3y ago

further, if your last question is not rhetorical, I support them in retrospect because I view things from an apolitical lens and think it was the best attempt at a societal cooperation to save lives. Yes, there were negative results, but there were also overflowing hospitals in 99.9% of the country

wyager 3y ago
> there were also overflowing hospitals in 99.9% of the country The hysteria over "overflowing hospitals" was mostly due to people not understanding the base rate of hospital occupancy, or how hospitals account for occupancy limits in general. In reality, utilization of the medical system collapsed because people were scared to go to the hospital for routine medicine. Whether that was net positive or negative depends on how iatrogenic risks interact with the selection effects in play at the time.
- bryanlarsen 3y ago
  Yes, the hospitals were quieter during the initial lockdown. However peak COVID deaths and hospital overload was in 2022. Our local hospital experienced 2 nurse suicides in 2022.
0xy 3y ago
If you wanted to protect hospitals, then why were 15 year olds locked down and not primarily old and obese people (the vast, vast majority of the risk). 15 years old took the brunt of the lockdowns yet had almost zero risk from the virus. Why is that? Shouldn't the people at actual risk of the virus shelter themselves? The difference in risk between a healthy 15 year old and an obese 85 year old is orders of magnitude different. The virus might as well be the common cold to the former.
TMWNN 3y ago
>but there were also overflowing hospitals in 99.9% of the country Italian and New York hospitals were overwhelmed because a) both places put sick elderly into old age homes. (42% of US COVID19 deaths in 2020 occurred in old age homes!) b) Like elsewhere early on, doctors put everyone serious onto ventilators in a mistaken belief that they should treat patients like they do ARDS cases based on blood oxygen levels. This damaged healthy lung sacs and caused long-term dependence on mechanical respiration that doctors found almost impossible to wean patients from, and other side effects like deep vein thrombosis; Nick Cordero is an example. (This article from April 2020 <https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/08/doctors-say-ventilators-overused-for-covid-19/ https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/08/doctors-say-ventilators-...> was completely vindicated in retrospect.) Neither happened after the first few months. And no, none of those field hospitals built in parking lots and stadiums everywhere were used. In Wales, for example, Millennium Stadium was converted into a temporary field hospital with 300 beds and capacity to expand to 2000 beds. It was such a big deal that a public contest was held to name it Dragon's Heart Hospital <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon%27s_Heart_Hospital https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon%27s_Heart_Hospital>. However, said hospital never had more than 46 patients at one time, and was closed in six weeks for lack of use! Even in NYC, which really did see overloaded hospitals briefly in March-April 2020, USNS Comfort treated a total of 179 patients. USNS Mercy treated a total of 77 patients in LA.

micromacrofoot 3y ago

They're not lost, they're still here. We could be making efforts as a country to help them catch up and at least make the gap smaller... it's not impossible. People love to decry the lockdowns, but we knew next to nothing about the virus at the time. No vaccines. A million people died in the US died from Covid. What would have been the acceptable trade-off for you? would 2 million deaths be fine if kids were in school? that's not the kind of math I'm comfortable doing.

0xy 3y ago
>A million people died in the US died from Covid. This claim is absurd and invented. Firstly, it takes two seconds to discover that the reporting requirements for Covid "deaths" do not say that Covid must be the primary cause of death, or even a contributing factor. Reporting standards stated clearly that anyone who dies and happens to also have Covid can be included as a "Covid death". There are numerous cases of this occurring with people who were already terminally ill, people who had a motorcycle accident and other absurdities. When the federal government financially incentivizes hospitals and medical institutions to inflate numbers that are loosely monitored, all of them will have their finger on the scale. There's documented evidence. >we knew next to nothing about the virus at the time We knew that lockdowns would destroy the economy, destroy the lives of children and irreversibly steal an entire generation. We also knew that Covid affected primarily old and severely unwell people, with obesity and other serious health conditions. With this in mind, why wasn't the lockdown aimed at the old and the obese, the people who were seriously at risk? A 15 year old had functionally zero risk yet took the entire brunt of the lockdowns. A 85 year old with obesity has massively inflated risk yet trades nothing off (they've lived their lives already). Trading the lives of young people to save old people is despicable. When a boat is sinking, the first people off are children. Why weren't children prioritized here?
- micromacrofoot 3y ago
  So how many people do you think really died from covid? 500,000? 100,000? how many more would have died without the lockdowns? In your eyes, how many more deaths would have been acceptable if the economy would be stronger today? We spent nearly $2 trillion in Iraq for a decade. 9/11 was the catalyst, and 3,000 people died. I'm not saying you're wrong for being frustrated. But to me these are all separate problems. The lockdowns almost certainly provided additional death. I think that's a noble cause. It wasn't only the elderly, even with lockdowns thousand of kids lost parents. No amount of being in school can fix that. Now where's the $2 trillion for tutoring these kids and helping them catch up? that's what I'm mad about.

dang 3y ago

Please make your substantive points without flamebait or name-calling. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. It's also in your interest because it will make your comments more persuasive.

postalrat 3y ago

Many people are doing the wfh thing barely working yet still getting a paycheck. Why would they complain?