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United States Medicine

Ask Slashdot: Did Fear and Groupthink Drive Unnecessary Global Lockdowns? (realclearpolitics.com) 583

An anonymous reader writes: There's an interesting analysis, which looks at several data points, to conclude that media may have flamed fears that drove the world to enforce lockdowns. From the story: "To put things in perspective, the virus is now known to have an infection fatality rate for most people under 65 that is no more dangerous than driving 13 to 101 miles per day. Even by conservative estimates, the odds of COVID-19 death are roughly in line with existing baseline odds of dying in any given year. Yet we put billions of young healthy people under house arrest, stopped cancer screenings, and sunk ourselves into the worst level of unemployment since the Great Depression. This from a virus that bears a survival rate of 99.99% if you are a healthy individual under 50 years old (1, 2).

"New York City reached over a 25% infection rate and yet 99.98% of all people in the city under 45 survived, making it comparable to death rates by normal accidents. But of course the whole linchpin of the lockdown argument is that it would have been even worse without such a step. Sweden never closed down borders, primary schools, restaurants, or businesses, and never mandated masks, yet 99.998% of all their people under 60 have survived and their hospitals were never overburdened. Why did we lock down the majority of the population who were never at significant risk? What will be the collateral damage? That is what this series will explore.

"In early February the World Health Organization said that travel bans were not necessary. On Feb. 17, just a month before the first U.S. lockdown, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said that this new strain of coronavirus possessed "just minuscule" danger to the United States. In early March the U.S. surgeon general said that "masks are NOT effective in preventing [the] general public from catching coronavirus." As late as March 9, the day Italy started its lockdown, Dr. Fauci did not encourage cancellation of "large gatherings in a place [even if] you have community spread," calling it "a judgment call." NBA games were still being played. So how did we go from such a measured tone to locking up 97% of Americans in their homes seemingly overnight?"
There's an argument to be made that lockdowns was perhaps the most responsible action a government could have enforced. Additionally, some Silicon Vally tech executives have argued that the media downplayed the significance of the coronavirus pandemic early on.
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Ask Slashdot: Did Fear and Groupthink Drive Unnecessary Global Lockdowns?

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  • No. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @10:41AM (#60105700)
    A poor response and even poorer preparation did.

    We didn't have testing and contact tracing capacity. We didn't have the research infrastructure in place to determine how bad the outbreak could be because we gutted it for the sake of Austerity and Nationalistic Politics.

    Also, we all keep talking about how survivable the virus is, but folks seem to forget that this thing fucks you up for 15-20 years, sometimes permanently, with brutal damage to your lungs. Here's a good example [insider.com].
    • The title has it exactly backwards.

      With a little more fear and a lot more groupthink, this entire thing could have been over in 2 weeks.

      But instead people still have a lack of fear and lack of willingness to work together; so we'll be stuck in almost-but-not-quite-lockdowns for virtually forever.

      And that's the worst of both worlds.

      • by Lab Rat Jason ( 2495638 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @11:07AM (#60105868)

        Man I wish I had mod points for you... You are exactly right on this.

        Also, I would add, every statement in the OP was qualified with an age limit. So somehow it's OK to sacrifice everyone over 60 years, for the convenience of the people under 60? I guess we just discovered the perfect way to keep the US Social Security program from going bankrupt.

        • by alboucq ( 2611345 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @11:32AM (#60106090)
          I tend to agree with you. Anyone who loves someone in on of the high risk groups (over 60 or having pre-existing conditions) will look at this situation differently from someone who is young, healthy and without any compassion for those in the high risk groups. Those that congregate to socialize and perpetuate the outbreak (rather than letting it die off) are making the outbreak last longer and kill more people (just maybe not themselves or anyone they love).
          • by cayenne8 ( 626475 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @12:12PM (#60106396) Homepage Journal

            I tend to agree with you. Anyone who loves someone in on of the high risk groups (over 60 or having pre-existing conditions) will look at this situation differently from someone who is young, healthy and without any compassion for those in the high risk groups. Those that congregate to socialize and perpetuate the outbreak (rather than letting it die off) are making the outbreak last longer and kill more people (just maybe not themselves or anyone they love).

            Well...I think yes and no.

            I mean, the lockdown was never (at least initially) there to halt or stop the spread...but, only to slow the spread to as to try to not overrun the hospital and healthworkers .

            It appears across the US, we have largely done this.

            This virus is so virulent that there is no "stopping" it realistically....pretty much everyone is going to catch it.

            Fortunately, so far....the vast majority of people that catch it, survive it, and a significant number actually never show any symptoms.

            That's the good parts.

            We also know...so far, that the virus is very tough on and can be deadly to folks over the age of 60+ and especially those that have pre-exisitng conditions and are in poor health (obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, etc).

            So, taking all of that into consideration, we need to likely try to come up with a strategy that let's those that are not terribly at risk to get back more to an old "normal" life and work....while figuring how to protect those that are elderly and at risk.

            I cannot tell you exactly how that would be done, but it needs to be seriously considered.

            Thankfully there seem to be some VERY accelerated vaccine trials going on, but if we look at history, we have never been terribly successful in corona virus vaccines....and it never happens very quickly.

            Thankfully, we appear to be on a fast track, but let's not count it any of the first rounds being 100% successful.

            And we are going to have civil unrest and possibly more deaths and all with the economy being down at some point....look at the vast numbers of people needing food help that we've never seen before.

            People will sacrifice only just so long when it comes to going hungry, etc.

            So, I posti an balanced plan needs to be taken. Those that are young and all, will likely catch and survive the disease without much problem. So, let's try to let them get back to work....and figure out how to protect the more at risk folks folks till tx or vaccine can be developed.

            I'd think if nothing else, letting the virus spread widely amongst those that are not threatened by it, would be a good thing and help promote herd immunity, etc.

            So, I think the answer is more grey than black and white like we've been treating it.

      • by znrt ( 2424692 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @11:07AM (#60105872)

        The title has it exactly backwards.

        imo the whole summary is a complete brainfuck. just at the end it adds:

        There's an argument to be made that lockdowns was perhaps the most responsible action a government could have enforced. Additionally, some Silicon Vally tech executives have argued that the media downplayed the significance of the coronavirus pandemic early on.

        thanks, mr anonymous brilliance! that was exactly the point of lockdowns: unpreparedness. so if you are able to understand this, what's the point of all these brainfarts?

        and you don't need silicon valley tech executives to see that not only the media downplayed the thread, fucking governments did, for months. hence, when shit hit the fan, lockdown it was. in panic mode. of course! what would you expect?

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Also, we all keep talking about how survivable the virus is, but folks seem to forget that this thing fucks you up for 15-20 years, sometimes permanently, with brutal damage to your lungs. Here's a good example [insider.com].

      Indeed. This is definitely something you do _not_ want to get.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Rei ( 128717 )

        Also, we all keep talking about how survivable the virus is, but folks seem to forget that this thing fucks you up for 15-20 years, sometimes permanently, with brutal damage to your lungs. Here's a good example [insider.com].

        Long-term damage from severe pneumonia is in no way unique to COVID-19. Just simply "catching COVID-19" does not cause serious lasting damage any more than "catching the flu" does.

        The simple fact is that the disease just isn't that much worse than a seasonal flu. It's been obvious for

        • Re:No. (Score:5, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @12:32PM (#60106516)

          I work at a hospital. One of the large ones that has a national, if not international, reputation. We are one of the hospitals of last resort. Zebra cases are horses for us. There are 20,000 people who work at the hospital (no, not an exaggeration: we are the largest non-profit in the state). We have been over-fricken-whelmed with cases. We didn't just expand the ICU, we set up four (or was it five?) additional ones AND THEY WERE FULL. It got so bad that non-clinical staff were re-assigned to clinical (but non-medical) duty so that clinical staff could spend more time taking care of patients.

          To anyone who thinks this was like a normal flu, or thinks this was a non-event, I say, head down to your local emergency room and ask how many of their staff are burning out.

          And to those criticizing that we over-reacted, I defy you to go back and make better choices based on the then-extant evidence.

          Part of my hospital's efforts was to coordinate with other local healthcare providers and the state government to set up a field hospital to off-load non-ICU cases of COVID-19. They created a 1000 bed convalescent unit; if you don't know how big hospitals are, this is huge. The maximum capacity it has seen thus far is about 30%. If that field hospital had not been stood up (to use the parlance), many, many more people would not have been treated at the normal hospitals and the death rate would have been much higher, and the wailing by Monday-morning quarterbacks would have been far more shrill.

          The worst geopolitical mistake of your apparently short lifetime was allowing Putin to invade Crimea unopposed. That's going to lead to big, big long-term problems. The global reaction to COVID-19 was not a mistake.

          And, to TFS author, apparently people over 50 have no value in your world. That's convenient, isn't it? How about giving the statistics for people who are older? Oh, you mean they don't count? Their premature deaths are not lamentable? Their suffering as they slowly expire, unable to breathe was not real? The massively high death rate in Sweden can just be ignored? TFS is nothing but propaganda, lying by omission.

          We need less propaganda, and more complete, whole truth.

        • Re:No. (Score:5, Informative)

          by Dixie_Flatline ( 5077 ) <.vincent.jan.goh. .at. .gmail.com.> on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @04:29PM (#60107948) Homepage

          No worse than the seasonal flu? What are you talking about?

          First of all, it's killed more people in three months WITH lockdown measures than an entire flu season, and that's probably an undercount, because people that died from COVID-19 that didn't show 'typical' symptoms weren't counted.

          And then there's the amount of time that it takes to recover if you DO show symptoms. It's not just a week and then done, if you start to present serious symptoms people are taking weeks to recover.

          It also attacks all sorts of systems that the flu doesn't. People are having strokes, renal failure, weird heart problems, and it all looks like its COVID. You simply can't say that it's no worse than the seasonal flu, because it clearly is. It's less transmissible than we initially thought, I'll give you that. It seems nearly impossible to contract it outdoors, and fomite transmission is less significant than initially expected. The problems seem to be indoors where the air is recycled and processed.

          https://www.sciencemag.org/new... [sciencemag.org]
          https://globalnews.ca/news/685... [globalnews.ca]
          https://www.independent.co.uk/... [independent.co.uk]

          It's really not that hard to find credible medical information that indicates that this is a brutal disease if you're one of the unlucky ones. And what makes a person unlucky? NOBODY KNOWS. Comorbidities were thought to explain everything at first, but there's plenty of people that are young and healthy that are presenting some of these worse conditions, and while their death rate is low, this damage may be permanent. It's ridiculous to be so cavalier about this.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        Let's start with all of the figures in the summary being cherry-picked around only certain groups of the population such as those under 45. How about "The odds of dying to COVID-19 are roughly similar to the odds of dying in any given year" - if this is even true, this would mean you are still twice as likely to die thanks to the presence of the virus.

        And how about: "To put things in perspective, the virus is now known to have an infection fatality rate for most people under 65 that is no more dangerous
    • by XXongo ( 3986865 )

      A poor response and even poorer preparation did.

      Exactly; and more precisely, the lack of testing screwed up the response.

      The best solution would have been to know who had the infection and quarantine them; and, together with this, isolate the people who had intimate contact with them. The social isolation implemented was a poor second choice, used because we really had no idea who had the infection.

      Testing was particularly badly done in the United States: the CDC and FDA screwed up, and, worse, didn't realize that they were screwing up. https://www.ny [nytimes.com]

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by lgw ( 121541 )

      We didn't have... contact tracing capacity.

      Nor should we ever. We must never do such a thing, because we are not an Orwellian nightmare state! Yes, that means more people will die. Yes, that is the price of freedom. That's the principle America was founded on.

      It has astonished me how quickly the groupthink rushed to give up essential liberty for the illusion of safety. But it seems we have pulled back from the brink. China is doing the expected , destroying what they can of the little remaining freedom in the Communist Hell. Let's take that a

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        We didn't have... contact tracing capacity.

        Nor should we ever. We must never do such a thing, because we are not an Orwellian nightmare state! Yes, that means more people will die.

        You first

        • Re:No. (Score:4, Insightful)

          by XXongo ( 3986865 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @11:38AM (#60106146) Homepage

          We didn't have... contact tracing capacity.

          Nor should we ever. We must never do such a thing, because we are not an Orwellian nightmare state! Yes, that means more people will die.

          Contact tracing does not have to be an "Orwellian nightmare. The simplest contact tracing is simply to ask people who they interacted with at close range in the last few days..

          Most of the transmission isn't "somebody you walked past." It's people in your house, or somebody you share an office with, or somebody whose hair you spend 30 minutes styling at a distance of six inches.

          Yes, that means more people will die.

          You first

          Yes, a lot of the comments here seem to be "if it's not me dying, I don't care."

          There is a trade-off, though. But you do have to realize it's easy to trade off other people's lives.

      • Re:No. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by TomR teh Pirate ( 1554037 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @11:14AM (#60105926)
        This is such a nonsensical trope. Being stuck in your house while a virus runs rampant is not giving up your freedom just like these other things aren't an infringement on your freedoms:
        - hiding in a basement during a tornado
        - getting under a doorway or a desk during an earthquake
        - wearing your seatbelt while driving a car
        - wearing a helmet while riding a motorcycle
        - abiding the rules in restaurants that indicate "no shirt, no shoes, no business"

        Your freedoms end where other people's safety begins. Here are some actual rights you didn't lose while you were asked to shelter in place:
        - the right to practice whatever religion you want, but from the safety of your home - the right to free speech, but from the safety of your home
        - the right to assemble online with Facebook or something similar
        - the right to firearms
        - the right to vote
        - the right to not be subjected to unreasonable search and seizures
        - the right to trial by jury
        - the right to due process
        etc., etc. etc. When WWII happened and the Japanese effectively had their property stolen by the government while those same people were incarcerated for a number of years, *that's* when rights were lost. All you lost was the ability to get a haircut and pedicure.
        • Re:No. (Score:4, Insightful)

          by lgw ( 121541 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @12:14PM (#60106406) Journal

          This is such a nonsensical trope. Being stuck in your house while a virus runs rampant is not giving up your freedom just like these other things aren't an infringement on your freedoms:

          Being under house arrest isn't giving up freedom? What kind of nonsense is this?!? How can anyone possibly fit a lie that big in their mouth?

        • "wearing your seatbelt while driving a car
          - wearing a helmet while riding a motorcycle"

          I'm old enough to remember when people complained, loudly, about how that was a dire infringement on their freedom. Many parts of the US still don't require motorcycle helmets. But oh how they object if you propose differing levels of life insurance payouts for the people who didn't wear them.

        • Re:No. (Score:4, Informative)

          by jeff4747 ( 256583 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @02:24PM (#60107280)

          - getting under a doorway or a desk during an earthquake

          [Pedantic Mode on]

          A doorway is no longer recommended during an earthquake. Enough people followed this advice for people to notice the door smashes into them repeatedly as they stand in the doorway.

          [Pedantic Mode off]

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Here's a good example [insider.com].

      There's NOTHING about "brutal damage to your lungs" or the risk of being fucked up for "15-20 years" in your example. Some roided out guy losing a bunch of weight when they took his roids away for six weeks is NOT a good example of the effects of COVID. It's just you being grossly hyperbolic AGAIN.

    • by JBMcB ( 73720 )

      We didn't have the research infrastructure in place to determine how bad the outbreak could be because we gutted it for the sake of Austerity and Nationalistic Politics.

      I keep hearing people say the US gutted national health programs. Exactly what was gutted? Because spending has certainly not decreased for the CDC or NIH.

      • We gutted pandemic preparedness programs, not "national health programs".

        Sold off PPE stockpiles, shut down the part of the NSC that prepared for pandemics, cut CDC spending on pandemic preparedness, cut the CDC positions where we had people in China gathering information about viruses there and a bunch of other programs that you failed to think about when you say "the CDC". We also failed to fill our seats at the WHO for years.

        The gutting of national health programs occurred in countries that have nationa

    • by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @11:45AM (#60106216)

      With the rise of Television and other mass communication we have been electing and ever increasing set of Media Personalities vs. Leaders.

      From time to time, we get lucky where a Media Personality is also a Good Leader, but it is rare.

      A good leader, doesn't need to fit the images that we See in Books, Comics, and Television. Where there is a guy who everyone admires and when there is a problem he can stand up and personally handle all the details.
      A good leader need to make sure the right people are in the right spot who can work on the problems, listen to experts showing trends and threats to make sure people and places are ready.

      If handled well, this could had been a much quicker problem to solve, without the need to close down everything.

      Now granted hindsight is 20/20 and we can look back and say we should had done this or that better. However what is making the problem worse our so called leaders (both sides of the political spectrum, and around the world) are so busy bickering than doing something about it.

  • by El_Muerte_TDS ( 592157 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @10:44AM (#60105708) Homepage

    Or any other of your older relatives. Because if people ignore they, they will have a higher chance to suffer and die.
    Additionally, I heard being hospitalized and surviving it is not as much fun as going to Disney Land.

    • I dunno. I've done Disneyland and Disneyworld way too often. And a few days in the ICU once. IMHO, neither is as bad as modern air travel or the average cocktail party. But still, all those things are best avoided. And so, AFAICS, is COVID-19

  • by darkain ( 749283 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @10:44AM (#60105714) Homepage

    The virus infection is not a binary "life" or "death" as the only two possible outcomes. There are plenty of reports to show the significantly lower quality of life due to lung tissue damage. "HEY, YOU'RE ALIVE, BUT CAN'T EVEN WALK UPSTAIRS, lets be thankful!"

  • Locked up in homes (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bugs2squash ( 1132591 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @10:45AM (#60105718)
    I don't know of anyone locally who was locked up in their home. It seems to me that measures were necessary to contain the issue and in the absence of better information blanket measures were adopted. Now that we know more and that we have better tools (testing etc.) we can adapt those measures. This is not the time to throw the baby out with the bath water.
  • by Way Smarter Than You ( 6157664 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @10:48AM (#60105724)
    Everything else was a waste.

    When it takes 2-5 days to get test results back, contact tracing is pointless. By the time someone gets a result, presumably negative, they could have been infected post-test, and then infect countless others while thinking they're healthy because they just got a clean result. If tests were same day or better same hour then contact tracing would be useful. It's just a placebo and talking point right now. Too long to get results.

    In 2-3 years we'll get real statistics about this time period. I wasn't sure before but now I'm pretty certain we'll be told full lockdown was a big mistake.
    • by XXongo ( 3986865 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @11:09AM (#60105894) Homepage

      Everything else was a waste.

      Well, also "get away, get far away from anybody coughing, sneezing, or in any way expelling droplets."

      And also, "avoid superspreader events".

      When it takes 2-5 days to get test results back, contact tracing is pointless.

      Right: you need faster testing. The U.S., in particular, was not prepared, and screwed up badly.

      ...In 2-3 years we'll get real statistics about this time period. I wasn't sure before but now I'm pretty certain we'll be told full lockdown was a big mistake.

      One of the papers quoted in the very biased article by "anonymous" that we're talking about is this one https://hal-pasteur.archives-o... [archives-ouvertes.fr] which states that in France, the lockdown changed Ro from 3.3 to 0.5 . That's the difference from a very fast exponential rise to an exponential decay. The exponential rise at Ro=3.3 would have quickly overwhelmed the hospitals. Yes, the lockdown worked.

  • Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Gilgaron ( 575091 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @10:48AM (#60105726)
    No, we're opening with insufficient data to support it, hopefully it is the right call in the end. We're still learning new things about the pathology every day, we could have a generation with early organ failure when all is said and done. We just don't know. It's like worrying about loss of productivity because you went to your basement during the tornado warning instead of mowing your lawn.
  • Maybe, but... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by PuddleBoy ( 544111 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @10:49AM (#60105736)

    (anecdotal...) My roommate is a nurse and assures me that, while lockdown itself may or may not have been the best path, the best argument in its favor is that, left to their own devices and habits, Americans have an annoying habit of ignoring what's good for them. Had we vigorously followed social distancing and *always* worn masks when outside the house, maybe the lockdown could have been less severe.

    But a large portion of people (my guess is 30%) out at open businesses are not wearing masks.

    If people won't take a relatively simple precaution like that, what should/can we do to contain the virus until we understand it better?

    (understanding things like this is important to our response to the next virus/bug...)

  • Sweden (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nagora ( 177841 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @10:49AM (#60105740)

    Firstly Sweden didn't do nothing - there was social distancing just not enforced. Secondly, Sweden is a very poor performer in terms of deaths per capita with ~400/million. It's up there with France, Italy and Britain - all countries that made their move far too late on in the process. They should have been at 50-60/million like Norway and Finland.

    • by DarkOx ( 621550 )

      Compare excess deaths, rather than covid deaths. Sweden does not look to bad, in those stats. Maybe more died directly from covid, but more did not really die

    • Re:Sweden (Score:4, Informative)

      by Per Wigren ( 5315 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @11:12AM (#60105914) Homepage
      The really bad performer in Sweden is nursing homes in the Stockholm area. The rest of Sweden, which have had equally lax restrictions, is comparable to the other Nordic countries in deaths per capita. Also, people in nursing homes die in such great numbers because the nursing homes are/were very understaffed and the staff couldn't get access to protective gear until just recently. They don't die because other people can go to the mall to buy a sweatshirt or take a walk in a park. Don't mix these things up.
    • Re:Sweden (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Strider- ( 39683 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @12:15PM (#60106416)

      Compare that to British Columbia. Population of about 5.1 million, mostly concentrated in two cities (Vancouver and Victoria). Over this past weekend, there were a total of 12 new confirmed cases, 5 on Saturday and 7 on Sunday.

      Did we go into full lockdown? Nope, but certain non-essential businesses were ordered closed, including pubs/bars/restaurants, personal services (hair salons/barbers/nail salons, etc...), gyms were ordered closed by local health authorities, and also a strong encouragement from the government to employers to allow their employees to work from home. At the same time the consistent message from the health authority has been to get out of your house for walks and solo exercise, keep your distance from others, and wear a mask when you can't maintain distance.

      All in all, it's worked pretty well, and I'm proud to be a citizen of this province.

      In what I hope become the imortal words of Dr. Bonnie Henry: "Be Kind, be Calm, and be safe."

  • yet 99.98% of all people in the city under 45 survived.

    Sounds like one of those numbers that sounds great until you translate it into number of preventable deaths or include people who were and possibly still are gravely ill or compromised

  • by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @10:53AM (#60105762)

    1. Lockdown, isolation, everything goes halfway ok and, in retrospect, it does not look too bad.
    2. No lockdown, no isolation, and everything goes to hell very fast

    The problem is that with exponential growth, there is very little space between the two. A factor of 10 is just one week. Even with less restrictive measures, you may stretch that only to 10 days or two weeks. Of course, a hospital Corvid-19 ICU being used by only 30% looks empty and oversized. But react one week later and it will be at 300% utilization and that means catastrophe-level, and a large number of people dies because they cannot get ICU care.

    Also remember that these decisions have to be made fast (see above) and without understanding the contagious disease well. Hence you always need to make sure you cover the worst-case and then some, because the results of not doing so are inconceivably bad. My take is that the global reaction was just about fast enough and harsh enough and that catastrophe was narrowly avoided. Too narrowly. Hence, due to the properties of exponential growth, it looks to some people like there was ample room and the reaction was overdone. It was not.

    Those that understand exponential growth can see this. The others have no business criticizing, because they really have no understanding of how this thing works. Their strategy would have assured a major catastrophe.

    • by martyros ( 588782 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @03:56PM (#60107796)

      I've been asking people this math puzzle as an intro to this topic:

      Suppose you have a pond that covers over with lily pads every spring. The lily pads double every day. It takes 16 days for the pond to be completely covered. How long does it take to be half covered?

      The answer, of course, is 15 days, which seems very counter-intuitive. But that's what exponential growth is like: nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, FOOM!

      So, now, imagine your hospital beds are 75% empty, and the case rate is doubling every 3.5 days. What's it going to look like in a week and a half?

      That's why it's so important to slam on the brakes hard when you see that exponential growth.

  • See all the other articles about tracking apps.

  • Breaking News!!! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Comboman ( 895500 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @10:55AM (#60105788)
    Breaking News: Young healthy people are young and healthy. They can smoke, do drugs, eat spicy foods, drive fast, get laid and drink until they pass out with minimal effect on their short-term health. They can also apparently get Covid-19 without dying. Enjoy it while it lasts.

    This from a virus that bears a survival rate of 99.99% if you are a healthy individual under 50 years old.

    From those of us that are over 50 or have pre-existing conditions, I sincerely apologize that you were inconvenienced so we could stay alive.

    • Breaking News: Young healthy people are young and healthy.

      Keep in mind that different microbes can impact different age groups harder. For example, a virus that's reasonably similar to one that's been around a long time may affect young people more because older people already have an immunity to its close cousin(s) that's good enough to keep it at bay. Each bug is different. This one just happens to affect the elderly more. The next big one may turn the tables and whack the young.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Ceseuron ( 944486 )

      Breaking News: Young healthy people are young and healthy. They can smoke, do drugs, eat spicy foods, drive fast, get laid and drink until they pass out with minimal effect on their short-term health. They can also apparently get Covid-19 without dying. Enjoy it while it lasts.

      This from a virus that bears a survival rate of 99.99% if you are a healthy individual under 50 years old.

      From those of us that are over 50 or have pre-existing conditions, I sincerely apologize that you were inconvenienced so we could stay alive.

      I'd say being forced out of your job because you were deemed "non-essential" is more than an inconvenience. Being put in a position where foreclosure and eviction is a very real possibility, especially after any government instituted halts to the same expires, is more than an inconvenience. Not being able to reliably put food on the table for your family, or even being put into a situation where that's actually a possibility, is more than an inconvenience. Facing the very real possibility of having your car

  • by Kokuyo ( 549451 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @10:56AM (#60105796) Journal

    It depends.

    If you're dealing with a new virus, a possible pandemic, I'd say we have reacted not quick enough. At the same time, the moment certain facts had become known, we should have let the reins go quite a bit.

    The idea of flattening the curve was a good one in the face of what happened first in Wuhan and then northern Italy. However we are now weeks and months into this situation and we've known for quite some time that most other places have underwhelming numbers of patients in their ICUs.

    So basically our emergency reaction was slowed by not wanting to lose money and freedom and our reacting to things not being as bad has been slowed by the fear that the media has perpetuated.

    In many places, politicians have also used the lockdown to push through agendas they knew would have resulted in demonstrations (which are currently conveniently forbidden).

    This whole thing was fubar.

    One can only hope we'll learn certain crucial lessons:

    Members of the press that peddle fear need to be dealt with harshly (this will never happen).
    If a new virus looks to be potentially pandemic and dangerous, you should take insight from Plague Inc. and do like Greenland does: If the Chinese start coughing, we lock borders. Yesterday.
    Inside of two weeks, we should do everything to analyse the virus and act accordingly. (some people wanted to burn bodies without autopsy, literally killing any chance of learning about the virus)
    If acting accordingly means revoking lockdown, we revoke lockdown, no matter how many people enjoy their virtue signalling.

    All pipe dreams, I realize but hey, one CAN still dream.

    • I am getting rather annoyed at all of the hand wringing about how everything everyone did, whether going to lockdown or not lockdown was an "incompetent failure." To paraphrase another person similarly blamed, you go to war against an epidemic with the test kits, mask supply, level of social cooperation, capability for contact tracing you have on hand rather than what you wish you had.

      One of the anniversaries of Operation Market Garden was observed with the obligatory statements of it being "doomed from

    • by sarren1901 ( 5415506 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @11:40AM (#60106174)

      You would do the same as my parents did. Self isolate. My step father got a heart transplant 2 years ago. He's been in defacto lockdown ever since and that was his personal choice. He sees family, goes to church and doesn't let life stop him from living it. He also takes precautions and avoids anyone that may think they are sick and doesn't really hang around unknown people anyway. If I have ever an inkling of sickness, I let them know so they can avoid stopping by my place and me from visiting.

      None of that required the government do anything. It's like my parents took some personal responsibility in keeping themselves safe. Personal Responsibility. I don't expect 47% of the population to actually understand what the means though. Please continue living in fear. Your government will surely keep you safe and sound.

  • It's sad (Score:4, Insightful)

    by PeeAitchPee ( 712652 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @10:57AM (#60105802)
    It seems like half the world is taking the approach seemingly advocated by the tone of this article: that the whole thing was a nothingburger, it's background noise, wearing a mask is violating my rights, etc. The other half is shrieking that we're all going to die or be permanently injured by this thing, and that no one is safe. And once again, the silent, sane, moderate majority -- who understands that this isn't just the flu and that certain precautions really do need to be taken for awhile longer, but that it's not the end of civilization either, and that you can't keep society locked down forever because after awhile the economic damage is worse than the disease itself -- necessarily takes a backseat to both of these screaming, foaming political tribes. Is there NOTHING in society anymore that isn't wrecked by these warring factions? Jesus Christ, I feel like I'm back in the Ice Age watching you all raiding each other's villages, forever blaming the other side, forever planning the next attack, except that now you have the Internet to use instead of rocks and pointy sticks.
    • Re:It's sad (Score:4, Insightful)

      by liquid_schwartz ( 530085 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @12:06PM (#60106358)

      It seems like half the world is taking the approach seemingly advocated by the tone of this article: that the whole thing was a nothingburger, it's background noise, wearing a mask is violating my rights, etc. The other half is shrieking that we're all going to die or be permanently injured by this thing, and that no one is safe. And once again, the silent, sane, moderate majority -- who understands that this isn't just the flu and that certain precautions really do need to be taken for awhile longer, but that it's not the end of civilization either, and that you can't keep society locked down forever because after awhile the economic damage is worse than the disease itself -- necessarily takes a backseat to both of these screaming, foaming political tribes. Is there NOTHING in society anymore that isn't wrecked by these warring factions? Jesus Christ, I feel like I'm back in the Ice Age watching you all raiding each other's villages, forever blaming the other side, forever planning the next attack, except that now you have the Internet to use instead of rocks and pointy sticks.

      There is a way out, break up the US so that each section can peacefully go its own way. If one chunk wants East Germany style contact tracing and reporting of neighbors and it bothers you then you can move to one that might be more cavalier about the threat but still has many freedoms. Both sides will be happier. The US is just to far apart in terms of its politics to stay together.

      • Agreed. Break this country up into about six-to-eight sub-countries and let's see who ends up being the shithole nations. I have my suspicions. Besides, I'm tired of paying for red states' stuff. Let them become the Libertarian paradises they've always seemed to want to be and see how they do.

  • Sweden never closed down borders, primary schools, restaurants, or businesses...and their hospitals were never overburdened.

    Swedes tend cooperate with each other, government, and expert recommendations voluntarily. They are probably not a good sample of a typical nation.

    Italy's hospitals were swamped for a while, as were New York City's. There may be a happy medium where semi-normal activities can happen without swamping the hospitals, but it's a difficult "knob" to control. If you get it wrong then you ne

  • by Acy James Stapp ( 1005 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @10:59AM (#60105808)

    That's how I read your screed. It's certainly convenient for you when you can ignore over a third of the population when you calculate your rates.

  • What a topic. The sea looked angry that day my friends. I can see a s-h-i-t storm abrewing.
    I predict that this discussion will not produce a useful answer.

  • by transporter_ii ( 986545 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @10:59AM (#60105814) Homepage

    The biggest problem I have seen is that there is a big misconception of what the lockdown actually did (or is doing). Pushing deaths off into the future is not the same thing as preventing them. If there is no vaccine on the horizon, all the lockdown does is slow the rate of infection in order to not overwhelm the medical system. Outside of a vaccine or a miracle, it is just going to run its course, just slower.

    The media is making everyone think that so many lives are being saved by the lockdown. Not that many are, really, and I wish the media was clearer on this.

    I guess it is possible we stay in lockdown until there is a vaccine. Realistically, with the current administration, I just don't see it happening.

    • by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @11:27AM (#60106028) Journal

      If there is no vaccine on the horizon,

      There are literally 159 different vaccines on the horizon [wikipedia.org]. Most of them will probably be ineffective, but not all of them.

    • I'm still confused.

      And it's not just the administration, everyone just seems to be "done" with this. If we see this re-spike in a few weeks (which seems ... likely?) - I don't see most people having the stomach to re-lockdown for 6 weeks again. And I don't just mean the "ignorant re-open protesters".

      At least in Colorado, everyone is simply outside doing their thing at this point.

    • by iikkakeranen ( 6279982 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @02:59PM (#60107472)

      The number of people who get infected/killed by the disease is not going to be the same as if the pandemic was allowed to "run its course" unopposed. That notion was popular earlier on, but now we have enough data to disprove it. Looking at places like South Korea or New Zealand or even Norway, it's inconceivable that their death rates per capita could ever "catch up" with countries that didn't do as good a job, no matter how long it takes to get a vaccine.

      For example, if it takes ten waves of outbreaks, each as bad as the first (which is unlikely given that testing/isolation can only become more routine), Norway could catch up with Sweden's first wave but by then Sweden would also have experienced multiple new waves. Given that only 7% of Sweden's population have antibodies, at least ten times the number of people there will have to get infected before there is herd immunity - within a time shorter than the life of the antibodies (a year is a good guess).

      In the meantime, Norway has reached a point where they had two deaths in the last week while Sweden had 331. Norway can now return to something approaching normalcy with resources put into rapidly detecting and isolating any new infection clusters, while Sweden remains in a state of crisis.

      • by jesterzog ( 189797 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @04:47PM (#60108008) Journal

        I'm in New Zealand and I think we got extremely lucky between the border closure, a severe but relatively short lock-down, a leadership that's been taking advice and constructive criticism seriously (not something anyone can take for granted), a general public which for the most part trusts the leadership, and where a few random things have fallen since then. The death count of about 21 people from 1154 detected infections isn't really a significant measure. For context, it could've been half that if Covid-19 hadn't gotten into a single rest home, or double or triple that if something else had gone wrong. If it'd gotten out of control then I don't think the public health system would have coped well because we're so isolated that it'd not be able to scale up much in a rapid time.

        The jury's still out on long term effects and recovery for business and people's lives, especially as international tourism was such a big industry here, but that's another story. Stuff's changing, I guess.

  • Quite the opposite. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by RyanFenton ( 230700 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @11:00AM (#60105820)

    Selective fear of reduced stocks resulted in far more deaths than have been necessary, so far.

    It's a full pandemic. They follow pretty predictable arcs. There's still no viable protection in widespread production, so most significant group gathering has resulted in further spread.

    It's not rocket science.

    Most people know this - but the Fox News approach of selective fears in favor of the interests of the wealthy pushes these 'your fears of death are less important than my fears of money".

    Supply chains and much of the economy have been kept alive and quite well this entire time. Investments haven't fallen too dramatically after the initial reaction and recovery cycle. We're in pause.

    Most folks still want to self-isolate, so we're seeing these stories of selective fear being pushed on right wing news sources.

    But again - this isn't rocket science, the consequences are repeated and well known.

    This is why we NEED actual science - because without a viable vaccine, and production chain, we don't get past the big obvious rational fears causing so much permanent injury, and death.

    It's only the folks that selectively choose fears based on greed that want to short-change the obvious path towards resolving all these fears rationally.

    Ryan Fenton

  • by eepok ( 545733 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @11:01AM (#60105826) Homepage

    The evidence shows that the fears were very well founded. "Groupthink" (also known as heeding expert advice/instruction) has helped to reduce the damage from COVID-19. Those two things being true, the lockdowns (both government-mandated and self-quarantining) have reduced the spread of the virus. There's no rational argument against that.

    Yes, the media fanned the flames. That's what the media does. They take something novel and they HAMMER on it until it's irrelevant. In this case, that hammering was actually beneficial to public health.

  • by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @11:01AM (#60105830) Journal

    ...that lockdowns aren't an impact-free choice, either.

    Certainly, there's an economic cost, but I'm not talking about that.
    How many people have died DUE TO being locked down? How much fear has been generated that has prevented people from getting elective* or prophylactic surgeries, due to which their health or comfort will be materially impacted as a result?

    *elective surgeries are not just boob jobs and tummy-tucks, it's any surgery that's planned in advance ie not emergency.

  • Even by conservative estimates, the odds of COVID-19 death are roughly in line with existing baseline odds of dying in any given year.

    So the virus doubled the risc of dying? Because the risk of dying by COVID-19 comes on top of the baseline risk of dying.

    This from a virus that bears a survival rate of 99.99% if you are a healthy individual under 50 years old

    And if your're unhealthy or over 50 you don't matter?
    We don't live as isolated individuals. What you do affects me and everyone else.

    Sweden never closed down borders, primary schools, restaurants, or businesses, and never mandated masks, yet 99.998% of all their people under 60 have survived and their hospitals were never overburdened.

    Yeah, compare a country with a socialized healthcare system with the US. That will work out well.

  • by Kohath ( 38547 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @11:15AM (#60105932)

    As each new bit of info is released, why do we keep seeing government officials react as if you are likely to spread Covid outdoors? You are not [slashdot.org].

    A possible overreaction to a poorly understood threat is completely understandable. Doubling down on wrong answers after the threat is better understood is just dumb.

  • GG Slashdot... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by theurge14 ( 820596 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @11:21AM (#60105976)

    Between crap like this headline and all the pandering to your sponsors without full disclosure (e.g. a month of repetitive Zoom hysteria mixed in with Microsoft Teams ads), this site really has turned into Qanon for nerds. Starting to wonder if it's worth even reading any more.

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