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.
"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.
No. (Score:3, Insightful)
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].
Lack of fear and groupthink prevented necessary on (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Lack of fear and groupthink prevented necessary (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Lack of fear and groupthink prevented necessary (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Lack of fear and groupthink prevented necessary (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Lack of fear and groupthink prevented necessary (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think you want people to die. I think you're grasping at some magic solution that will accomplish two goals in equal measure. It doesn't exist. Our ability to deal with pandemics isn't any greater than it was a century ago. Our medical science is far advanced, but only insofar is we are more capable of keeping people infected who suffer the most severe consequences of that infection alive... at least in some cases. But as with 1918, when we're dealing with a highly contagious disease for which we have no preventative therapy, we have only one actually useful tool; and that's distancing. Unfortunately, a good deal of most jurisdictions' economies are based on close proximity; hospitality, entertainment, manufacturing, and service industries are all built around high density. In the short term, there is no solution but to do what we can to reduce that density. It worked a hundred years ago in jurisdictions in which authorities had the wit and will to institute it, and it ended much more poorly for jurisdictions that did not.
Until we have an effective vaccine, we will have to maintain physical distancing measures. Where the outbreak is managed, we can ease off, and that, as it was a hundred years ago, is going to have to be dependent on how well each jurisdiction deals with it. But if Sweden is any example, just imagining that herd immunity in the absence of a vaccine isn't going to end up with a lot of dead bodies isn't going to do the job.
We have another likely peak period coming, probably in September, so if we just let loose the reigns, we'll be right back in April, so the better approach is a measured one, opening up, but cautiously, with the understanding that some areas may need to back away again. In the long term, we certainly have lessons that I hope we learn. We have relied far too much in manufacturing and production on centralized high density facilities (think meat packing plants). We have allowed short-term thinking on economy of scales compromise our ability to protect critical industries from such outbreaks, despite plenty of warnings from previous outbreaks that packing whole bunches of people in offices or on production lines is a recipe for disaster.
The fact is that this won't be the last pandemic. Just because we in the developed world have built great temples of steel and concrete dedicated to industry and economic output doesn't mean we aren't creatures of flesh and blood, as vulnerable to dangerous pathogens as we ever were.
So in the short term, the solution is physical distancing. That is very sadly going to make it very hard for some industries. In the next phase of policy making and spending should be measures in place to, for instance, decentralize food production. We lose some economy of scale, but we gain a far more resilient supply chain. Industry won't do it on its own, because its instinct is maximize productivity and profits, so policy needs to be adjusted.
Re:Lack of fear and groupthink prevented necessary (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Lack of fear and groupthink prevented necessary (Score:5, Informative)
You need to compare Sweden to the neighboring Nordic countries to see how badly they have failed. These are all countries that are similar to Sweden culturally, demographically, and how connected they are to the world. Norway, Denmark and Finland are now all around 0-2 deaths per day from COVID-19 while Sweden is around 50. Sweden's total for the pandemic is an order of magnitude higher than the neighbors' as well. Sweden's economy is going to be worse off than the other Nordic countries because of this, and with only 7% of Swedes having antibodies they're also nowhere near what it would take to produce herd immunity. So they gained nothing for gambling away the lives of their citizens.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Sweden's economy is going to be worse off than the other Nordic countries because of this
How so? They aren't going to have to restart their economy as much as other Nordic countries. Why would some more deaths cause their economy to crash worse than their neighbors?
and with only 7% of Swedes having antibodies
Those results wer
Re:Lack of fear and groupthink prevented necessary (Score:5, Informative)
If Sweden was such a failure, why are their numbers almost identical (or even much better) than all these other European countries?
Because:
1) Time hasn't stopped. We can look at Sweden's trendline and see where this is going.
2) Only about 7% of Swedes are now immune to this virus. Meaning their approach has utterly failed to quickly produce the herd immunity they expected.
Re: (Score:3)
A) Because the Swedes locked themselves down without it being required by their government.
The have indicated they are taking an economic hit similar to their neighboring countries. A study of public transportation usage indicated that Swedish usage of public transportation dropped dramatically. Their approach hasn't been that different, just not government mandated.
Re: (Score:3)
If Sweden was such a failure, why are their numbers almost identical (or even much better) than all these other European countries?
Because all those European countries registered the majority of their deaths while they were taking Sweden's approach. You do realise that most of Europe was not under lockdown for the first 2 months of the virus, which everyone agrees was a very fucking bad idea.
Now Sweden (along with most Nordic countries) comes up in the rear as the virus took far longer to spread up north. I notice you didn't compare Sweden to Finland, Denmark, or Norway. Why is that? Doesn't fit your narrative?
Re:Lack of fear and groupthink prevented necessary (Score:4, Informative)
Country - cases per 1mil - deaths per 1mil: (https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries)
Denmark - 2k - 97
Norway - 1.5k - 43
Finland - 1.2k - 56
Iceland - 5.3k - 29
Similar cases per 1mil, with a higher death toll (again, due to them not protecting nursing homes enough, NOT due to keeping the economy open).
Re:Lack of fear and groupthink prevented necessary (Score:5, Interesting)
We went early and hard into lockdown, and on Friday we are allowing gatherings of up to 100 people in a group, restaurants have been open for a couple of weeks to parties of 10 or fewer.
Haven't had any new cases for the last 4 days, and only 21 deaths in total. We are very optimistic that we have eliminated the virus, and as long has we have strong border controls (mandatory isolation and/or quarantine on arrival) then it will stay that way. We are even looking at opening up a trans-Tasman bubble with Australia.
There is >90% approval rating for the government's handling of the pandemic, despite the huge economic cost. Why? Because all anyone needs to do is to look at other development nations to see what happens when the response is muddled.
Re:Lack of fear and groupthink prevented necessary (Score:5, Insightful)
Old folks, sick, and scared people can stay home where young folks don't need to.
This is the problem with slashdot, too many of the comments are from middle-aged guys with no social life who don't understand that there are human beings living in something called a "family" with something called a "household", where older and younger people share the same living space.
No, just because you don't have a family, doesn't mean that other people don't. Turns out if the younger people get infected, in the real world-- where families exist-- older people get it too. There isnt a glass wall between "young" and "old".
Re:Lack of fear and groupthink prevented necessary (Score:4, Insightful)
This is the problem with slashdot, too many of the comments are from middle-aged guys with no social life who don't understand that there are human beings living in something called a "family" with something called a "household", where older and younger people share the same living space.
Hey, cut them some slack - they've simply forgotten that their basement dwelling is attached to a larger living space belonging to other humans. They've been living in the equivalent of "lockdown" for decades already.
Re:Lack of fear and groupthink prevented necessary (Score:5, Funny)
There isnt a glass wall between "young" and "old".
No, but there is a bedroom door. I can only be about 50% certain that there's a teenager living in my house. Every once in while I catch a glimpse of one in the kitchen. Could be a teenager, could be bigfoot, nobody knows.
Re:Lack of fear and groupthink prevented necessary (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
Re: Lack of fear and groupthink prevented necessar (Score:5, Funny)
Trump saved 2.4 million lives. Change my mind.
Re: Lack of fear and groupthink prevented necessar (Score:5, Informative)
All the preventative measures were issued at the state level. Every lockdown was at the state level. All the testing that was done was at the state level.
Trump literally and out loud said he was leaving all the response to the states. He gave some small percentage of the US national stockpile out, and than used federal agents to confiscate PPE and ventilators from states that bought it own their own. That seems to be his entire reaction. That and bitching at press conferences about how he's going to overrule the governors (which he does not have the power to do.).
Re: Lack of fear and groupthink prevented necessar (Score:5, Insightful)
The first estimates were 2.5m dead. The anticipation was a massive overwhelming of our medical system.
No, it was 2.5m dead WITH NO PREVENTIVE MEASURES. So we took massive preventive measures - shutting down most of the economy. And guess what? The "no preventive measures" scenario didn't take place! Instead of 2.5m deaths, we got "only" 100k deaths (so far. It will probably climb by a factor of 2 or 3 before we get a vaccine, but still far less than 2.5m).
The lock downs resulted in marginal slow down of the spread.
Before lockdown, the number of new infections per day was doubling every 5 days. Wherever lockdown was instituted, within 10-14 days (several days for the average infection to take place, plus several days to show symptoms, plus a couple days for test results to come back) the number of new cases started to *decrease*. That's not a "marginal" slowdown.
We could have used the stimulus where it was actually needed: providing isolation to vulnerable populations
Sweden tried to achieve herd immunity while isolating vulnerable people, and failed. Right now they have the highest death rate per day of any country in the world [telegraph.co.uk]. I don't expect the US government would be more effective in this than the Swedish government.
We ended up surrendering away our rights
You didn't surrender any rights. You never had a right to spread deadly diseases to other people. Quarantines have been a part of democracy for as long as democracy has existed.
Re: (Score:3)
But to be fair to those that feel this way.
Quarantines have always been for those that ARE sick or known to have been DIRECTLY exposed with reason to believe they have the disease.
This is different where we've pretty much placed everyone under what is similar to mild form of house arrest.....with the assumption you ARE infected when there have been no signs that you have be, nor are infectious.
Now...if we had a viable and acc
Re: (Score:3)
If you have to tell people you're a "real man", you're not.
But then, it's easy to thump your chest and claim anything when you live in some backwater shithole of a state with no one around you.
Re: (Score:3)
You plague rats are the reason why this pandemic is still going on in America as the rest of the world recovers.
Re: (Score:2)
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)
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)
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)
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)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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
Re: (Score:3)
Okay, yeah, that makes the numbers fall into the right range.
Still, a hundred miles is more than 3x the average daily commute for adults, and likely an even higher multiple for kids. And traffic deaths are the leading cause of deaths for people under 55, so that would likely make coronavirus the new leading cause of death in people under 55 by a fairly large margin. And even on the lower end of their range, it would be close to the top. So yeah, as the GGP said, far from being comforting, that range is
Re: (Score:2)
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)
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)
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)
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)
- 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)
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?
Helmet laws (Score:3)
"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)
- 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)
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.
Re: (Score:3)
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.
Re: (Score:3)
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
Lack of Leadership. (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Maybe you hate your parents, but I don't (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:3)
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
Re: Maybe you hate your parents, but I don't (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: Maybe you hate your parents, but I don't (Score:4)
Re: (Score:3)
Myself and pretty much everyone who was not for these lockdowns in politics wanted to take steps to protect at-risk populations.
Given that most of America has high blood pressure or some other complicating factor, your idea is not a good one. Most of the country is at risk. Check out this guy [insider.com]. Even people who show no obvious symptoms to the disease often have lungs with ground glass opacification.
There are things we might have been able to do to avoid lockdown, but your idea is not the right one. It leads to exponential growth of the virus in the population, with young and old alike filling the hospitals with their dead bodies.
E
Virus infection is not binary (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
Masks, stop shaking hands, old stay home (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Masks, stop shaking hands, old stay home (Score:5, Interesting)
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)
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
But the masks are being politicized and the demographic most skeptical of them is the highest risk, so it is hard to be confident. We're in a situation where the political leanings of the local church congregations may actually have a significant effect on community outcomes.
I completely agree with you, but let me give you a little ray of sunshine in the middle of this madness.
I live in Texas and am a member of a traditional, conservative, protestant church with a few hundred members. It's what most of the country would assume is ground zero for Trump support (it isn't in practice, but you'd think it would be). We cancelled in-person services as soon as the shelter-in-place orders arrived, but I've been at church every week during the lockdown because my work as "the guy who ma
Maybe, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
(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)
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.
Re: (Score:3)
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:5, Informative)
Compare excess deaths, rather than covid deaths. Sweden does not look to bad, in those stats.
I was looking at excess deaths; Sweden is really bad.
Re:Sweden (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Sweden (Score:4, Interesting)
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."
99.98 (Score:2)
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
Re: 99.98 (Score:5, Insightful)
With exponential growth, there are two cases (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:With exponential growth, there are two cases (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Never let a crisis go to waste (Score:2)
See all the other articles about tracking apps.
Breaking News!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Every bug is different (Score:3)
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)
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.
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
The obvious answer: (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
A lockdown too far (Score:3)
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
Fear and Groupthink Drive Unnecessary Lockdowns (Score:2)
Re:Fear and Groupthink Drive Unnecessary Lockdowns (Score:5, Interesting)
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)
Re:It's sad (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:3)
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.
The "undo" button has a big delay (Score:2)
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
Old people deserve to die (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
I see a s-h-i-t-storm abrewing (Score:2)
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.
Biggest problem with the media (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:Biggest problem with the media (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re: (Score:3)
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.
Re:Biggest problem with the media (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Biggest problem with the media (Score:4, Informative)
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)
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
Fear & Groupthink, Yes. But also, correct. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:3)
Flattening the curve absolutely changes the death rate.
If you have a serious case, you have a much better chance of survival in a hospital. Hospital capacity is limited. Spreading the cases out helps ensure more severe cases get proper treatment in a hospital.
Why else do you think we would want to "spare the medical industry from being overwhelmed" if not to reduce deaths?
Let's remember... (Score:3)
...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.
No, but shortsighted individualism kills people (Score:2)
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.
And what about now? (Score:3)
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)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
But the problem is, if you try to do a soft lockdown, some fraction of the population is going to interpret this as "no isolation needed," and initiate superspreader events.
It's the superspreader events that you most need to stop. https://quillette.com/2020/04/... [quillette.com]
Re:Madness (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
A lot.
1918 "great influenza'" shows more lockdown better (Score:5, Informative)
Murdering the economy was pure madness.
After the 1918 Great Influenza epidemic the cities with more complete and longer lockdowns had substantially better economic recovery and growth afterward than the ones that locked down less. Starting earlier was really good. Stopping later also helped.
Dead people don't contribute much to economic activity at all, and people crippled by disease are able to contribute less than those who are healthy.
Re: (Score:3)
Horseshit. Walmart, Target, Lowes, Home Depot....all these places are and were still open, and are packed. Killing smaller businesses didn't do us any favors.
We would have been better off protecting the at-risk ( they can quarantine ), employing "social distancing" protocols for everyone else.
Re: So? (Score:2)
You guys and Trump did worse to Obama.
Re: So? (Score:2)
Re: So? (Score:5, Informative)
I think perhaps I was unclear; my fault, sorry. Any president will have many experts telling them what is true and what they should to about it. Most presidents will look at the facts and arguments of the experts (and also other factors) and make a decision. It may not be a decision everybody likes, and sometimes it is for reasons uncoupled from the actual issues, but they still make a decision based on the facts.
I don't see this with Trump. He regularly mentions "facts" who's main source, as far as anyone can tell, is that they were mentioned on a segment on Fox News in the past 24 hours (the source is clearly not "reality" or "experts").
You mention "informed decisions". He said "Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away". He said "When you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve done". Those are not quotes from an informed man.