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That seems quite possible; I haven't seen anyone waving evidence around that the US lockdowns helped. Have you got any figures estimating what order of magnitud

by roenxi 1y ago

That seems quite possible; I haven't seen anyone waving evidence around that the US lockdowns helped. Have you got any figures estimating what order of magnitude difference they made?

simonw 1y ago
Here's a recent one (looks like it's gone through peer review now, there were earlier preprints that hadn't floating around): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40468026/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40468026/ The PDF is linked from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/387051732_Estimating_The_Impact_of_Public_Health_Interventions_on_COVID_Mortality_in_The_United_States_Using_Reductions_in_Influenza_Mortality_as_an_Indicator_Of_Non-Pharmaceutical_Infection_Control https://www.researchgate.net/publication/387051732_Estimatin... > This study uses influenza mortality reduction (IMR) as an indicator of the aggregate effect of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI's) on the spread of respiratory infections to assess their impact on COVID mortality. [...] A counterfactual model of no NPI's suggests they prevented 850,000 COVID related deaths in the United States.
- roenxi 1y ago
  1) That is NPIs, it doesn't break out the impact of lockdowns. There was a big drop in IMR across all the states, even though it seems rather unlikely that all states followed the same policies. 2) If we attribute all the change to lockdowns that would suggest the lockdowns were a minor disaster. If 32% of the population didn't get vaccinated - that is basically a 3rd of the population locked down for nothing, up to around 50% in some areas. One obvious issue is lockdowns are always competing against people voluntarily choosing to stay home and isolate themselves and adopting special procedures in nursing homes. The high correlations between vaccination rate and IMR suggest it might actually just be picking up how concerned communities were with COVID and how much effort they put into protecting themselves. It is an interesting study though, I like the approach.
tonymet 1y ago
wouldn't this also be part of the AI catastrophe?

by roenxi 1y ago

That seems quite possible; I haven't seen anyone waving evidence around that the US lockdowns helped. Have you got any figures estimating what order of magnitude difference they made?

simonw 1y ago

Here's a recent one (looks like it's gone through peer review now, there were earlier preprints that hadn't floating around): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40468026/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40468026/ The PDF is linked from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/387051732_Estimating_The_Impact_of_Public_Health_Interventions_on_COVID_Mortality_in_The_United_States_Using_Reductions_in_Influenza_Mortality_as_an_Indicator_Of_Non-Pharmaceutical_Infection_Control https://www.researchgate.net/publication/387051732_Estimatin... > This study uses influenza mortality reduction (IMR) as an indicator of the aggregate effect of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI's) on the spread of respiratory infections to assess their impact on COVID mortality. [...] A counterfactual model of no NPI's suggests they prevented 850,000 COVID related deaths in the United States.

roenxi 1y ago
1) That is NPIs, it doesn't break out the impact of lockdowns. There was a big drop in IMR across all the states, even though it seems rather unlikely that all states followed the same policies. 2) If we attribute all the change to lockdowns that would suggest the lockdowns were a minor disaster. If 32% of the population didn't get vaccinated - that is basically a 3rd of the population locked down for nothing, up to around 50% in some areas. One obvious issue is lockdowns are always competing against people voluntarily choosing to stay home and isolate themselves and adopting special procedures in nursing homes. The high correlations between vaccination rate and IMR suggest it might actually just be picking up how concerned communities were with COVID and how much effort they put into protecting themselves. It is an interesting study though, I like the approach.

tonymet 1y ago

wouldn't this also be part of the AI catastrophe?