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On September 14 2021 20:29 Slydie wrote:
What is a "lockdown" even mean? Shudding down everything non-essential? Forcing everybody to stay at home? Forcing people to not leave their areas? Closing all restaurants? Closing gyms? Closing schools?
The word "lockdown" has almost lost its meaning at this point as it covers so many different shades of anti-covid measures.
I know Spain the most, and the word lockdown (confinamiento) was not really used after the initial response, which was one of the harshest in the world and caused incredible mental, physical and economic harm. It was close during the January wave, but people most businesses were still running and the schools stayed open.
I think how many deaths a bad flu season can cause should always be a reference for acceptable amounts of deaths. The vaccines have made those numbers much more comparable, and now people cry crisis about numbers noone shrugged about a few years ago.
I think a bad flu season should be the reference for an an acceptable amount of deaths in vaccinated individuals + children. The unvaccinated had every opportunity to get their shot. If they still haven't, that's on them. I see no reason to tell people they have to close their businesses to help save the lives of people that won't even save their own life. Maybe that makes me an asshole. Oh well. The unvaccinated are probably more likely to agree with my take anyway. My take basically gives them what they have been asking for, so where are they going to find a fairer fucking deal than that?
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On September 14 2021 20:02 Liquid`Drone wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2021 19:16 Zambrah wrote:
We live in a warped and twisted world where preventing human death and suffering isnt a good reason to do something.
That should be just about the best god damned reason to do something. Lockdowns cause a lot of suffering. They prevent deaths, which I agree is a worthy cause, but I'm not sold on them reducing suffering. Mortality rates are not the primary determiner of how good a society is to live in (I mean, a really high rate is obv a bad indicator). I've read that Norway has had a lower mortality rate than normal during covid (other deaths are down by more than what covid deaths are up by), but it has certainly been a very tough year and a half for many. With how few people have died and become seriously ill, I think there is no question that the anti covid measures have caused more suffering than what covid has. (Of course, that equation would be entirely different with fewer measures, and I'm not disagreeing with the measures taken. ) The point however is that people that are anti lockdown have not reached that conclusion because they are pro suffering, rather they've reached it through thinking lockdowns cause more suffering than otherwise.
The fact that there’s an argument to be made about whether they reduce suffering points to them being better than just rampant death, if both have suffering at least one cuts down heavily on the death portion...
Incidentally I think whether or not you think anti COVID measures have been worse than COVID comes from whether or not you were particularly affected by COVID. The people who died and their loved ones probably think getting COVID was worse than having to wear masks, or get vaccinated, or skip out on eating in at restaurants for a little while.
I spent two weeks in bed getting maybe two hour chunks of sleep at a time because I’ve wake up chokingon myself, and I’m comparatively lucky given I didn’t die or anything.
We also still don’t fully understand the long term implications of COVID, so we’re not really looking at a complete picture on the suffering COVID has caused beyond killing over 600,000 people.
Lockdown definitely didn’t cause as much death or real suffering as COVID has imo, especially given how incredibly sparingly lockdowns even went down in the US compared to the well over a year of having COVID going down.
Like everyone else says though, wouldn’t have to lockdown if dumb shits would wear a mask and not insist on doing their damnedest to spread disease, a lot of the suffering could easily be prevented or minimized, but instead people would rather not. Frankly I’m not sure if I’d attribute suffering to COVID prevention measures as much as I’d attribute suffering to anti vaxxers, anti maskers, and all of their ilk given their refusal to actually adhere to COVID prevention measures necessitates the extended benefit of COVID prevention measures and lockdowns.
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On September 14 2021 20:37 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2021 20:29 BlackJack wrote:On September 14 2021 20:00 Magic Powers wrote:On September 14 2021 19:28 BlackJack wrote:On September 14 2021 19:16 Zambrah wrote:
We live in a warped and twisted world where preventing human death and suffering isnt a good reason to do something.
That should be just about the best god damned reason to do something. It's so easy to just look at the pros of something and ignore the cons, eh? Why do you think that Dr. of the WHO's special envoy on COVID-19 recommends against lockdowns as the primary control method for preventing COVID-19 when we already know this is far and away the best way to prevent death? Do you think he is just fucked in the head and doesn't care about preventing human death and suffering? ... Since he didn't "advise against lockdowns" contrary to your claim,? ... Bro, my post is practically 1 sentence long, are you really going to misquote it in such a ridiculous way? I said he "recommends against lockdows as the primary control method for preventing COVID-19." Here is his quote "We in the World Health Organization do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of this virus." No one outside of arguably Australia is using lockdowns as a primary means of control. Everyone is using it as a last resort after the other measures failed to contain it. What are you even arguing at this point?
Did you see my response to Zambrah that started this quote-chain? I said there are pros and cons to lockdowns. Lockdowns are by far the BEST way to stop the spread of COVID and therefore prevent death. Yet you rightly point out that almost no country is using lockdowns as a primary control method for COVID. So do does that mean we live in a warped and twisted world where preventing death and suffering isn't a good reason to have lockdowns? No, it means there are cons to lockdowns that have to be considered as well. JimmiC and others can tell you all about how many ICU beds are occupied in a state he lives >1000 miles from, but I'd wager he probably hasn't spent more than 5 minutes researching what the ramifications are of millions of children missing school, hundreds of thousands of businesses closing down, millions losing their health insurance that is tied to their employment, millions being one eviction moratorium away from being homeless, etc.
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On September 14 2021 20:58 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2021 20:37 Gorsameth wrote:On September 14 2021 20:29 BlackJack wrote:On September 14 2021 20:00 Magic Powers wrote:On September 14 2021 19:28 BlackJack wrote:On September 14 2021 19:16 Zambrah wrote:
We live in a warped and twisted world where preventing human death and suffering isnt a good reason to do something.
That should be just about the best god damned reason to do something. It's so easy to just look at the pros of something and ignore the cons, eh? Why do you think that Dr. of the WHO's special envoy on COVID-19 recommends against lockdowns as the primary control method for preventing COVID-19 when we already know this is far and away the best way to prevent death? Do you think he is just fucked in the head and doesn't care about preventing human death and suffering? ... Since he didn't "advise against lockdowns" contrary to your claim,? ... Bro, my post is practically 1 sentence long, are you really going to misquote it in such a ridiculous way? I said he "recommends against lockdows as the primary control method for preventing COVID-19." Here is his quote "We in the World Health Organization do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of this virus." No one outside of arguably Australia is using lockdowns as a primary means of control. Everyone is using it as a last resort after the other measures failed to contain it. What are you even arguing at this point? Did you see my response to Zambrah that started this quote-chain? I said there are pros and cons to lockdowns. Lockdowns are by far the BEST way to stop the spread of COVID and therefore prevent death. Yet you rightly point out that almost no country is using lockdowns as a primary control method for COVID. So do does that mean we live in a warped and twisted world where preventing death and suffering isn't a good reason to have lockdowns? No, it means there are cons to lockdowns that have to be considered as well. JimmiC and others can tell you all about how many ICU beds are occupied in a state he lives >1000 miles from, but I'd wager he probably hasn't spent more than 5 minutes researching what the ramifications are of millions of children missing school, hundreds of thousands of businesses closing down, millions losing their health insurance that is tied to their employment, millions being one eviction moratorium away from being homeless, etc. Yes I know where this started. With you saying Florida was doing fine without lockdowns and that the doomsayers were wrong.
When confronted with Florida's record deaths you moved to the point that lockdowns shouldn't be the primary way of dealing covid, which they aren't because everyone else is only turning to lockdowns when all else has failed. (again, outside of maybe Australia). With no counter to that you have seemingly now moved on to the consequences of lockdowns on education and the economy.
And yes lockdowns do damage there 300+ people dying every day also does a lot of damage. I'll take a child remote learning for a year over one of its parents or the child itself dying, but hey, that's just me I guess.
And the economy, well good thing all the people in favor of lockdowns also tend to be in favor of government assistance to help companies and families make it through the period of lockdown until everyone is vaccinated and society can open up and go back to a semblance of normal.
So, is your point that Florida's current (well, more like a month old death count cause lol shoving deaths into the past) death count, when compared to how the rest of the western world is doing, is acceptable? And is Florida actually doing better in educational and economic numbers then the rest of the country? Because I keep seeing reports of school classes closing and teachers dying over there. Imagine that is also disruptive to the children's education.
ps.
How many businesses and schools in Florida are trying to implement measures on their own without the state government? Lots of that damage your worried about is happening anyway because 'shocked' turns out companies don't like it when their staff gets sick and died or becomes disabled from long covid.
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On September 14 2021 20:58 BlackJack wrote:Yet you rightly point out that almost no country is using lockdowns as a primary control method for COVID.
This is either hair-splitting or outright false. I consider it hair-splitting in cases where lockdowns are used as the first of the auxiliary methods after mass vaccination. The reason being that you're arguing lockdowns should be used as a last resort only (with which I agree), so therefore if it's used in combination with a mass vaccination program, then it'd be absurd to consider complementary lockdown policies a "last resort", as that'd be almost the exact opposite of a secondary measure.
The following map from about a month ago shows the state of lockdown in various countries. I wasn't able to find a more recent map, but I think this should suffice.
https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-lockdowns/
It shows that in a significant number of countries (i.e. NOT "almost no") the lockdown restrictions are strict (>75%). It looks to be around two dozen or so (for context, there are more or less 200 countries in the world). There are also at least a few dozen countries with strictness >50%.
I would certainly not put a "last resort" method that is as severe as a lockdown under >50% strictness (as that would make it more of a "first resort"). It would have to be <50%, and to be honest even that is stretching it. Personally I'd go with <25% or somewhere in that region.
To conclude: although you can split hairs and say that "almost no country" is using lockdowns as a primary control method, but then which control methods would be considered primary? We know mass vaccination requires a participation rate of ~80%+, so if we want to do more hair-splitting, then why don't we also consider the mass vaccination programs "not a primary method of control in most countries"?
See, this is the problem with your line of reasoning. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you don't appear to be arguing for the sake of coming to a good conclusion or spreading useful information, but instead perhaps for the sake of arguing or other such motives. Not that we can't have a good discussion, but when you're spreading information in this way, the odds of spreading misinformation goes up, and other people have to clean up after you since you're not putting in the effort to correct your own information.
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Norway28674 Posts
On September 14 2021 20:53 Zambrah wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2021 20:02 Liquid`Drone wrote:On September 14 2021 19:16 Zambrah wrote:
We live in a warped and twisted world where preventing human death and suffering isnt a good reason to do something.
That should be just about the best god damned reason to do something. Lockdowns cause a lot of suffering. They prevent deaths, which I agree is a worthy cause, but I'm not sold on them reducing suffering. Mortality rates are not the primary determiner of how good a society is to live in (I mean, a really high rate is obv a bad indicator). I've read that Norway has had a lower mortality rate than normal during covid (other deaths are down by more than what covid deaths are up by), but it has certainly been a very tough year and a half for many. With how few people have died and become seriously ill, I think there is no question that the anti covid measures have caused more suffering than what covid has. (Of course, that equation would be entirely different with fewer measures, and I'm not disagreeing with the measures taken. ) The point however is that people that are anti lockdown have not reached that conclusion because they are pro suffering, rather they've reached it through thinking lockdowns cause more suffering than otherwise. The fact that there’s an argument to be made about whether they reduce suffering points to them being better than just rampant death, if both have suffering at least one cuts down heavily on the death portion... Incidentally I think whether or not you think anti COVID measures have been worse than COVID comes from whether or not you were particularly affected by COVID. The people who died and their loved ones probably think getting COVID was worse than having to wear masks, or get vaccinated, or skip out on eating in at restaurants for a little while. I spent two weeks in bed getting maybe two hour chunks of sleep at a time because I’ve wake up chokingon myself, and I’m comparatively lucky given I didn’t die or anything. We also still don’t fully understand the long term implications of COVID, so we’re not really looking at a complete picture on the suffering COVID has caused beyond killing over 600,000 people. Lockdown definitely didn’t cause as much death or real suffering as COVID has imo, especially given how incredibly sparingly lockdowns even went down in the US compared to the well over a year of having COVID going down. Like everyone else says though, wouldn’t have to lockdown if dumb shits would wear a mask and not insist on doing their damnedest to spread disease, a lot of the suffering could easily be prevented or minimized, but instead people would rather not. Frankly I’m not sure if I’d attribute suffering to COVID prevention measures as much as I’d attribute suffering to anti vaxxers, anti maskers, and all of their ilk given their refusal to actually adhere to COVID prevention measures necessitates the extended benefit of COVID prevention measures and lockdowns.
I get that outside Norway/countries with similarly low death/infection rates, the equation is entirely different. But in Norway, it's not close. I literally don't know any person that has been significantly affected by them or someone they know contracting the virus - I think I know ~5 people who have tested positive (students of mine), but 0 of those 5 suffered more than say, the amount of suffering them getting the flu would constitute. (0 hospitalizations.) I also don't know anyone who has lost close relatives or friends - and that includes grandparents. The US has more than twice as many deaths per capita than we have hospitalizations per capita.
However, nearly everyone I know has in some way been negatively influenced by the measures to combat covid, and while the more introverty internet aficionados like myself have been less bothered, I've seen others increase their alcohol/drug consumption (and without the social benefits they'd normally experience), and I'm guessing my 20 closest friends would report an average bmi increase of ~2. Many youth have received an inferior education, mental health has deteriorated for the same group, elderly have been even more lonely, organized sports for youth was put on a long pause.. I get that the flu comparison is off in countries experiencing 20-30+ times the death count of a bad flu season, but in Norway, we're at like.. 2x just that. I think it's entirely conceivable that say, if we hadn't had any measures (not talking about masks here - rather about all types of 'social distancing') but our death count was 5 times higher, that the 'overall suffering relative to covid' would have been less than what it has been now. (Again, 5 times higher than Norway, especially Norway outside Oslo, is still a lot fewer than the American numbers.)
Now, I know this is the USpolitics megathread (edit oh nvm apparently I was totally off on this), and we're talking about the US. I'm just bringing up Norway as an example because while we're an example of a country that has escaped Covid largely unscathed, we have not escaped the negative side effects of successfully combating it. I haven't thought that our measures have been particularly harsh (the only one I've disagreed with was I thought they paused organized sports for children for a few months too long + I've disagreed somewhat with how some 'stimuli packages' have been targeted), and I recognize them as a success. They've still caused damage.
I also agree with everyone that it sucks that the American population (and in many other countries, but especially yours) has been so non-compliant, both in terms of social distancing and in terms of vaccinations. It's an unfortunate consequence of living in a particularly fractured society. There's no quick fix to that. You can't mandate trust in government - any attempt might just have the opposite effect. You can use force to vaccinate, I guess, but damn, that sounds really dangerous in a population where the combination of 'insane' 'armed' 'conspiracy anti-vaxxer who think they are injecting you with devil semen' is so prevalent
Anyway, myself, being double vaccinated (as of 2 hours ago), I don't want to have to socially distance anymore. (Tbh, I largely stopped after the first one.) I also understand that other vaccinated people don't want to. I'm totally fine with requiring some type of vaccine passport for various activities and various types of sticks and carrots to increase vaccination rates, private business is free to (or encouraged to) do whatever they want. Main point I'm making is that social distancing is a plague of its own, I guess - I'm not gonna pretend that I know how to fix the problem in the US.
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On September 14 2021 21:27 JimmiC wrote:I don't support lockdowns, I hate them. I just also hate that people doing the right thing are paying (both montary and with their health) for stupidity, ignorance and arrogance.
This is what I think needs to be said more often. It's not a pro-lockdown vs anti-lockdown situation. All the people I know on all sides would be very happy to see lockdowns being lifted permanently. The argument is about what the situation currently is, how things have been going so far, and what should be done in the future. Lockdowns are among the most important measures because they work extremely well, this has been proven again and again and again.
I'm a strong proponent of liberal policies, but seeing that there's apparently not a very strict enforcement of the rules anyway (certainly not in Austria or Germany), it appears to me that at least in these countries the reality is that we're relying mostly on compliance and respect rather than force and coercion. I travelled to Germany and back for a few days recently to attend a farewell party. There were at least six different occasions during which I could've rightfully been asked to show proof of a negative test or vaccination. Can you guess how many times I was asked? Right, exactly zero times.
I recently forgot to put on my mask in public transport. Fortunately I wasn't a significant risk factor for me or others, but my mistake reminded me to be more mindful in the future. I wasn't stopped or told by anyone. And all the other times that I saw someone with no mask, they also weren't stopped or told either. Does that sound particularly authoritarian? Now if I had been kicked out of the train, that would've given me something to think about. Insert "we live in a society" meme.
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On September 14 2021 21:52 JimmiC wrote:
I think the point is though that the reason Norway is doing well is those measures that caused what you agree less damage that letting the virus run wild would have done. No one is arguing there is no cost to measures, people are arguing that cost is dramatically lower than the alternative.
Exactly. Saying "the measures have impacted me/others a lot more than the virus" is akin to saying "I/others have worn the seatbelt a lot more than I/others have been in car accidents". Well, duh. People would stop driving cars if the ratio was closer to 50:50, in fact they'd stop driving cars long before that ratio can be reached.
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LiquidDrone is right except on one count - this isn't the US politics thread.
I really don't know why every COVID discussion (which is what this thread is about, at least from what I understand from the title and OP) has to veer on the US political and cultural climate. The world is bigger than US. People come from many diverse places and have far more different experiences with COVID than, say, some dude in Florida.
Part of the big problem with discussion in this thread is using local examples to extrapolate some universal experience.
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Norway28674 Posts
Oh sorry. Conversation tends to overlap. :D
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USA is on the bad end of the wealthy country spectrum, I'd say Spain/Portugal are on the good end.
Over the last week, cases went down ~30% in both countries, and combined with very high vaccination rates, they're good to watch to see where they go.
https://www.esmadrid.com/en/information-coronavirus
Similarly in Portugal:
https://www.visitportugal.com/en/content/covid-19-measures-implemented-portugal
Looking at both, there's still a fair number of relatively light touch restrictions (capacity restrictions in restaurants/potentially crowded areas, passports needed). Restrictions are targeted heavily against higher risk environments, so it is very much possible to drop covid cases rapidly without needing full lockdowns if you have high vaccination levels.
I guess now that Denmark's lifted all restrictions, we'll see in the next month how the country fares. They have a quite high vaccination rate which is in their favour, but in Metro Vancouver, where we've got similar vaccination rates, there was still fairly sustained spread without measures in place.
Vaccinations are the key to unlocking lighter touch covid management measures. If vaccination rates are low, you'll obviously need higher impact measures to bring spread under control. Most places will need children to be eligible to reach the levels where Denmark is at right now, forget Spain/Portugal, so it's going to be early 2022 before most countries can think about being fully open.
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From what I can gather, if a country wants to see increased vaccination rates without enforcing them, they'll have to remove several of the protected privileges that are still left for unvaccinated people, including travel restrictions, event participation, other gatherings, and even job security. The libertarian argument that this would be discrimination doesn't seem to hold, because vaccinated people also have rights (e.g. the right of not being forced to work with unvaccinated people, just to name one).
The thing is that there are many business owners who'd fire every single one of their unvaccinated employees if they could. Instead they can only put them on paid leave. I think unpaid holidays should also be on the table, because if I was a private business owner and I failed to protect my vaccinated employees, I can see a court case getting through of me being held responsible for the consequences. These types of worker protections already exist for other things similar to covid-19.
Unvaccinated people don't have more rights than vaccinated people. This is the message that needs to get through.
There's no such thing as a right to employment, only a right to work. There is protection against unemployment - but not unconditionally.
From a libertarian point of view, there are legal changes possible that would increase the pressure on the unvaccinated population. It's just a matter of doing it and dealing with the backlash - and I think that's why it hasn't been done yet. The political parties don't want to piss off their voting block, and whichever party makes the first move will be the one to receive the most backlash.
Hence why I think a lot of this is a matter of politics, not legal technicalities.
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Simple way to put it is, we're out of carrots, here's a stick.
There's very few people that respond to neither a carrot or a stick.
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I have to say that Norway is increadibly priviliged for dealing with Covid-19:
-The largest city has less than 700k inhabitants, 2 other have more than 200k and only 3 more have over 100k.
-A spread out population of only 5 million, broken up by fjords and mountains.
-Located in a corner of the continent with only 2 highways crossing the border.
-Generally bad infrastructure.
-A healthy political landscape where covid was mostly avoided as a political weapon.
-Very high trust in authorities.
-A well organized healthcare system with clear responsabilities at the local level.
-Social distancing as an integrated part of the culture.
-A cold climate where a lot of time is spent at home.
Finland has a lot of the same advantages and also did very well.
It would have been fun to run some simulations to see how little Norway could have gotten away with. The initial lockdown was almost certainly overkill, but at least the overall results were very good with the total deaths under half of a bad flu season.
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EPT
