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According to meta studies done on Covid, the most effective early response that countries did was actually authoritarian lockdowns, but just not the ones that p

by belorn 2y ago

According to meta studies done on Covid, the most effective early response that countries did was actually authoritarian lockdowns, but just not the ones that people remember. It was the shutdown of borders, airports, trains, and busses that had the best effect in reducing spread. Doing so limits trade and restrict peoples free movement, but those costs were minor compared to the pandemic. The costs were also smaller than initially expected, a lesson that future leaders should remember.

roenxi 2y ago
That isn't really "authoritarian", just extreme. Authoritarian policy is where one group gets serious about enforcing their opinions on another group in the polity without having to justify them or respect basic social contracts like freedom of speech or religion. Sealing the border is no minor thing, but it is more xenophobic than authoritarian. Not running trains and busses isn't an issue for any ideology I'm aware of. For example China is authoritarian but has busses, trains and an open border (I've been to visit, I wish we could handle that sort of industrial excellence in the West).
- belorn 2y ago
  Restricting the freedom of movement is usually associated with authoritarian, as would be xenophobia. However in term of effectiveness to combat a pandemic, restricting movement in places of high population density is a very effective measure. A specific issue with covid was also that the virus survived and distributed well in places with air recycling, such as planes, trains and buses (as well as trams and subways). The initial theory that spread were limited to droplets from infected individuals was found to be completely false. Sadly, this fact of the virus was mostly forgotten in the following political discussion. It is also why virus researchers view on masks was different (and generally ignored by everyone) compared to the two political camps. If you want to prevent an airborne virus, you got to either separate the air or have good enough filters, and studies done in the Swedish Karolinska medical university showed that even their hospital filtered AC system was not able to kill the virus. Live virus particles could be detected in every place where the AC system was connected. One can hope those kind of lessons will carry over to future pandemics if they are of similar nature as covid.

by belorn 2y ago

roenxi 2y ago

That isn't really "authoritarian", just extreme. Authoritarian policy is where one group gets serious about enforcing their opinions on another group in the polity without having to justify them or respect basic social contracts like freedom of speech or religion. Sealing the border is no minor thing, but it is more xenophobic than authoritarian. Not running trains and busses isn't an issue for any ideology I'm aware of. For example China is authoritarian but has busses, trains and an open border (I've been to visit, I wish we could handle that sort of industrial excellence in the West).

belorn 2y ago
Restricting the freedom of movement is usually associated with authoritarian, as would be xenophobia. However in term of effectiveness to combat a pandemic, restricting movement in places of high population density is a very effective measure. A specific issue with covid was also that the virus survived and distributed well in places with air recycling, such as planes, trains and buses (as well as trams and subways). The initial theory that spread were limited to droplets from infected individuals was found to be completely false. Sadly, this fact of the virus was mostly forgotten in the following political discussion. It is also why virus researchers view on masks was different (and generally ignored by everyone) compared to the two political camps. If you want to prevent an airborne virus, you got to either separate the air or have good enough filters, and studies done in the Swedish Karolinska medical university showed that even their hospital filtered AC system was not able to kill the virus. Live virus particles could be detected in every place where the AC system was connected. One can hope those kind of lessons will carry over to future pandemics if they are of similar nature as covid.