It’s Time to Re-Open America Now!

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The numbers don't lie: lockdowns did nothing by Tom Woods points out:

By Neenah Payne

Donald Luskin, in a Wall Street Journal article called "The Failed Experiment of COVID Lockdowns" (also adapted for the New York Post), tells us this:

TrendMacro, my analytics firm, tallied the cumulative number of reported COVID-19 cases in each state and the District of Columbia as a percentage of population, based on data from state and local health departments aggregated by the Covid Tracking Project. We then compared that with the timing and intensity of the lockdown in each jurisdiction…

Measuring from the start of the year to each state’s point of maximum lockdown, which range from April 5 to April 18, it turns out that lockdowns correlated with a greater spread of the virus. States with longer, stricter lockdowns also had larger outbreaks. The five places with the harshest lockdowns — DC, New York, Michigan, New Jersey and Massachusetts — had the heaviest caseloads...

The Lancet, the prestigious medical journal, found similar results when comparing across countries: "A longer time prior to implementation of any lockdown was associated with a lower number of detected cases."

The Washington Post is running this headline: "Trump's Disastrous Virus Response Is Veering Toward Another Terrible Turn." Why? Because Stanford's Dr. Scott Atlas dares to speak about "herd immunity" -- the strategy we all know has to be followed at some point, with the wreckage of the lockdowns piling up around us. The Post says: "This was the pandemic approach in Sweden, and it did not turn out well."

But of course it did turn out well. Of the 5800 deaths in Sweden, about 4000 were in long-term care facilities of some kind -- which are evidently atrociously run, and which the Swedes have admitted amounted to a major failure. The issue, though, is how did the Swedish approach affect the general run of society? What happened in isolated long-term care facilities with no contact with the rest of society is obviously no commentary on the strategy as a whole. Just 18 deaths per 100,000 looks pretty good to me. Meanwhile, there continue to be shouting matches about schools in the U.S., and even the ones that have opened are often forcing dystopian measures on the hapless kids.

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WSJ Data Analyst: Lockdowns Failed!

Data expert Donald Luskin explains how the COVID lockdowns have failed

Posted: September 3, 2020

SAN DIEGO (KUSI) – Economic lockdowns were the government’s answer to the COVID-19 pandemic, we were told it would be short period of time to get through it.

Chief Investment Officer of the analytics firm “TrendMacro,” Donald Luskin, wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal titled, “The Failed Experiment of COVID Lockdowns” to detail why he believes they did not work.

Luskin started the piece writing, “the results are in. Counterintuitive though it may be, statistical analysis shows that locking down the economy didn’t contain the disease’s spread and reopening it didn’t unleash a second wave of infections.”

Luskin explained that the period of time with the strictest lockdowns didn’t result in a reduction of spread whatsoever. Luskin wrote, “Measuring from the start of the year to each state’s point of maximum lockdown—which range from April 5 to April 18—it turns out that lockdowns correlated with a greater spread of the virus. States with longer, stricter lockdowns also had larger Covid outbreaks. The five places with the harshest lockdowns—the District of Columbia, New York, Michigan, New Jersey and Massachusetts—had the heaviest caseloads.”

Luskin joined KUSI’s Paul Rudy on Good Morning San Diego to discuss his article in depth.

“The Failed Experiment of COVID Lockdowns” can be read here.

Why Lockdowns Failed

Donald L. Luskin: COVID-19 lockdowns are a failed experiment — didn’t contain spread of disease

Imposing shutdowns appears to have been a large policy error

Donald L. Luskin, The Wall Street Journal

Six months into the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. has now carried out two large-scale experiments in public health — first, in March and April, the lockdown of the economy to arrest the spread of the virus, and second, since mid-April, the reopening of the economy.

The results are in. Counterintuitive though it may be, statistical analysis shows that locking down the economy didn’t contain the disease’s spread and reopening it didn’t unleash a second wave of infections. Considering that lockdowns are economically costly and create well-documented long-term public-health consequences beyond COVID, imposing them appears to have been a large policy error. At the beginning, when little was known, officials acted in ways they thought prudent. But now evidence proves that lockdowns were an expensive treatment with serious side effects and no benefit to society.

Were The Lockdowns A Mistake?

The lack of evidence lockdowns actually worked is a world scandal:

There is still not a shred of real proof that the planet's reckless stay-at-home experiment made any difference. We have detonated the global economy to pursue a lockdown experiment that may not have worked, according to the latest evidence. This diabolical revelation should be a world scandal. It should also be a sobering moment of enlightenment for Britain, as we seek to salvage our economy while learning lessons on how to better protect the vulnerable.

The 90% economy: Life after lockdowns The Economist shows how much the lockdown has devastated the economy. It points out: “It will be hard in ways that are difficult to imagine today”.

Were the COVID-19 Lockdowns a Mistake?

So have the lockdowns actually saved lives? There's a debate over how to analyze the data. "Lockdowns just don't actually alter behavior all that much," says Lyman Stone, an economist and demographer who's an adjunct fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a research fellow at the Institute for Family Studies. He argues that there's no correlation between the timing of statewide or regional shelter-in-place orders and a decline in the COVID-19 death rate…. "We can basically build a theory and assert that the world obeys our theory and just go looking for any scrap of evidence that supports it," says Stone, "or we can start by looking at what are the trends we actually observe."

Instead of shelter-in-place orders, he says the rest of the world should learn from the approach taken by Hong Kong, which never issued a stay-at-home order and has just four documented COVID-19 deaths.

Coronavirus Lockdown Put NYC In Crisis

Stuart Varney fears businesses will fail when workers don't return to the cities. FOX Business' Stuart Varney worries the combination of coronavirus lockdowns and violent protests may spell the end of New York City's economy. When coronavirus gripped the nation, lockdowns shut down stores and offices. One city especially hit hard is New York City.

Adding to that the violent unrest during the protests after George Floyd's death, New York City has been "clobbered by the virus, the lockdown and urban unrest," according to FOX Business’ Stuart Varney, in his latest "My Take." "New York City is in crisis," Varney said. "It's very hard to see how New York, and other cities, can come out of this in even halfway decent shape.

How Pandemic Models Failed

How pandemic modelling failed policy-makers, and how to do better by Harvey Schipper

OTTAWA, ON (July 9, 2020): The existing models for epidemics, which were used to trigger lockdowns around the globe in response to COVID-19, seem to have missed the mark in terms of predicting the spread of the virus and informing good public policy. But why did this happen, and how can policy-makers avoid making the same mistakes?

A new MLI commentary by Dr. Harvey Schipper titled “How pandemic modelling failed policy-makers, and how to do better,” makes the case that modelling has been focused too narrowly on medical knowledge alone. Schipper, a health policy expert, writes that “the time has come to rethink the concept we call a ‘pandemic.’”

All models, Schipper notes, represent “the necessary oversimplification of reality that enables us to act.” In the case of an epidemic, our model asks two questions: First, what do we know about the vulnerable host? Second, what do we know about the infecting agent? Current modelling works well when an epidemic is local, and the cause is well understood. However, given these limitations, Schipper argues that COVID-19 created a situation where the model was bound to break.

Moving forward, Schipper calls for epidemic modelling to change in a variety of ways, including:

  • Adding measures that account for all causes of morbidity and mortality. Delayed cancer treatments or heart transplants, for example, may lead to an increase in preventable deaths.
  • Allowing for “external” factors, such as high population density, economic, and educational status, to influence model projections.
  • Creating measures of economic impact to ensure that policies account not only for human health, but also for human well-being.
  • Establishing a lexicon of clear, common, and inter-disciplinary language regarding pandemics to better communicate risks, interventions, and pandemic mitigation efforts.

As Schipper warns, “thinking about pandemics as principally biological phenomena outside their broader context may have made it all worse.”

Economist: Devastating Impact of Lockdown Policy

THE COVID19 EXIT STRATEGY is a 2-hour show by Del Bigtree of The Highwire in which Del interviews Toby Rogers PhD, an economist who is the author of the March article Will "Deaths of Despair" Outpace Deaths From Coronavirus?

Rogers explains that we have 10-12% increases in unemployment already -- Great Depression levels.

He explains that the data show that five years after unemployment goes up by 1%, 36,000 people die as a result of unemployment -- 50% from heart attacks and others from "Deaths of Despairs" which include alcoholism, suicide, overdose, mental hospital patients, etc. He says 51% of small business will fail if the lockdown lasts for 90 days.

Alternative Virus Protocol


Rogers predicts an additional 75,000 Deaths of Despair. When that was picked up by Forbes, CBS, and Newsweek, The Washington Post tried to downplay the crisis. However, Rogers says we are in uncharted waters now. There is no model and no text book for what we are going through now. There is no way to guess what America will look like if the lockdown continues another 18 months while we wait for the mythical vaccine. He says the nation won't survive 18 months of lockdown that Dr. Fauci is prescribing.

Enormous Costs of COVID-19 Lockdown

The COVID-19 Shutdown Will Cost Americans Millions of Years of Life is a May 25 article by Dr. Scott Atlas, the new Coronavirus Health Advisor, and three other authors.

In the June 18 interview COVID-19 Interview with Scott Atlas, Dr. Atlas said the lockdown was based on the goal of “stopping COVID-19 at all costs” without considering the many major consequences. That was a gross failure of government policy which will go down in history as an error of epoch proportions. The shutting down of medical care has already killed more people than COVID-19, but will kill more and is setting up a massive public health crisis. The models were grossly wrong with a lot of obvious errors. Computer scientists were in charge of healthcare policy. That alone should have raised a red flag. Decisions were made based on worst-case scenarios. Dr. Atlas said the world poverty crisis that will result was almost all unnecessary.

Dr. Atlas explains why schools should be re-opened normally in the fall – without masks or social distancing. He discusses the multiple and enormous harms the lockdown has done to children.



Doctors Say End The Lockdown Now!


Dr Dan Erickson and Dr Artin Massihi counter the official narrative discusses is a video in which two front-line doctors in California in a one-hour meeting with reporters discuss conclusions they drew from data they collected about COVID-19. Dr. Erickson and Dr. Massihi report that their findings show COVID-19 is similar to the seasonal flu we have every year. Therefore, they say we should end the lockdown now because it is not necessary and the costs are too high. Those costs are not just economic -- as astronomical as those are.

Over 50 million Americans have filed for unemployment to date. The additional costs include loss of revenue, depression, alcoholism, spousal abuse, child abuse, suicide, etc. These society-destroying costs will mount unless the lockdown is ended NOW! They point out that these things “are significantly more detrimental to society than a virus that has proven similar in nature to the seasonal flu we have every year”. In other words – the “cure” is much worse than the disease! The policy has been a dangerous over-reaction.

These frontline MDs explain that the policies we have been told to adopt are putting us all more at risk because they lower our immune system and make us more vulnerable when the lockdown ends! These policies include the lockdown itself which is unprecedented and unnecessary for healthy people. They include the wearing of masks, social distancing, excessive washing of hands, and use of disinfectants. These policies make us more vulnerable to opportunistic infections what can result in a “second wave” which will be used to justify another destructive lockdown!

Dr. Erickson read their joint statement which points out:

We also need to put measures in place so economic shutdown like this does not happen again. We want to make sure that we understand that quarantining the sick is what we do -- not quarantining the healthy. We need to make sure if you are going to dance on someone’s constitutional rights, you better have a good reason. You better have a really good scientific reason and not just theory.

Dr. Erickson and Dr. Massihi point out that Emergency Room physicians across the country are coming to the same conclusions they have. Their recommendations are in line with those of a growing number of prominent doctors. It makes sense for our health policy to be based now on solid data from the field rather than on speculative models that are destroying our economy and undermining our freedoms.

America’s Frontline Doctors Support Re-Opening Now!

America’s Frontline Doctors held their first press conference outside the Supreme Court of the United States on July 27. Their main message was that Americans no longer need fear COVID-19 because the FDA-approved drug hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) has proven to be an effective treatment. Read the transcript of their press conference.

America’s Frontline Doctors site said before it was blocked:

American life has fallen casualty to a massive disinformation campaign. We can speculate on how this has happened, and why it has continued, but the purpose of the inaugural White Coat Summit is to empower Americans to stop living in fear. If Americans continue to let so-called experts and media personalities make their decisions, the great American experiment of a Constitutional Republic with Representative Democracy, will cease.

The press conference was aired by Breitbart and seen by 17 million people before it was blocked by the Tech Titans (YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook). America’s Frontline Doctors held the first day of the two-day summit on July 27 and it. The second day of the summit was scheduled for 8:30AM-1PM on July 28 but was not broadcast.

Dr. Simone Gold said:

We are finally coming forward, at great personal and professional costs to ourselves. We’re tired of seeing patients die in front of us, and we’re even more upset to see the spider web of fear that is enveloping the American public. When there’s a treatment, there’s a cure. People have been afraid to say that. But what else do you call it if you give somebody the medication early, and it aborts the disease process?

The event, hosted by the organization America’s Frontline Doctors, a group founded by Dr. Simone Gold, a board-certified physician and attorney, and made up of medical doctors, came together to address what the group calls a “massive disinformation campaign” about the coronavirus. The event was organized and sponsored by the Tea Party Patriots.

America’s Frontline Doctors support the re-opening of schools now without masks or social distancing because there is no documented case anywhere in the world of a child spreading the virus. Dr. Simone Gold was later fired from her hospital for participating in the event. She is also a lawyer and is filing a wrongful termination suit against the hospital.

America’s Frontline Doctors put up a new site at: https://americasfrontlinedoctorsummit.com/ where you can see the press conference. You can sign up and donate to America’s Frontline Doctors at: https://americasfrontlinedoctorsummit.com/.

Florida Re-Opening Schools Normally Now!


Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Dr. Scott Atlas hold coronavirus briefing

In a press conference on August 31, Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida said schools in Florida are re-opening now. The state left it up to parents to choose and 60% chose to send their kids to schools. Both the governor and Dr. Scott Atlas, the administration’s Coronavirus Health Advisor, spoke without masks. Dr. Atlas explained elsewhere that masks and social distancing are not necessary in schools because of the low infection and transmission rates in those age groups. Dr. Atlas responded to a question about an article in The Washington Post critical of his support for ending the lockdown now.


NYT and WaPo Critical of Re-Opening Schools Now


Who is Scott Atlas, Trump's new pandemic adviser? is a video in the Washington Post.

What is herd immunity, and why are Trump officials pursuing an idea WHO calls ‘dangerous’? is an August 31 Washington Post article by William Wan.

New Trump pandemic adviser pushes controversial ‘herd immunity’ strategy, worrying public health officials is an August 31 Washington Post article by Yasmeen Abutaleb. She was interviewed on Democracy Now show Meet the New Yes Man on Trump's COVID Task Force: Dr. Scott Atlas Wants U.S. to Adopt Herd Immunity.

The NYT 9/2/20 article A New Coronavirus Adviser Roils the White House With Unorthodox Ideas is critical of Dr. Atlas’ support for re-opening America without masks. It says

I think Trump clearly does not like the advice he was receiving from the people who are the experts — Fauci, Birx, etc. — so he has slowly shifted from their advice to somebody who tells him what he wants to hear,” said Dr. Carlos del Rio, an infectious disease expert at Emory University who is close to Dr. Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator…

The core of his appeal in the West Wing rests in his libertarian-style approach to disease management in which the government focuses on small populations of at-risk individuals — the elderly, the sick and the immune-compromised — and minimizes restrictions for the rest of the population, akin to an approach used to disastrous effect in Sweden.

However, in April, Dr. Michael Ryan of The World Health Organization recognized Sweden’s “herd immunity” as the right model in dealing with COVID-19 rather than China’s “lockdown” model. Health Officials Admit Virus Not As Deadly As Previously Thought: So Why Are We Still On Lockdown? shows the strange disconnect between reality and COVID-19 policies.

The May 12 Foreign Affairs article Sweden’s Coronavirus Strategy Will Soon Be the World’s says: “Herd Immunity Is the Only Realistic Option—the Question Is How to Get There Safely”. Why Sweden’s COVID-19 Strategy Is Quietly Becoming the World’s Strategy is a May 14 article that shows that much of the world is shifting from lockdown to herd immunity as the best model for dealing with COVID-19.

Sweden’s Herd Immunity Success


Why Sweden, pilloried by the whole world for refusing to lock down -- with schools staying open and no face mask laws -- may be having the last laugh as experts say Stockholm is close to achieving herd immunity asks: "Is it possible this Scandinavian nation might have made the right long-term call?” The article explains that Swedes “saw their remit as going beyond simply fighting the virus to include keeping the country functioning as much as possible”.

Anders Tegnell is the state epidemiologist who steered Sweden’s strategy for tackling this crisis.

We have knowledge of the negative effects of closing schools so that was definitely in our thinking,’ he said. ‘Also to keep society open, keep unemployment down, make it possible for people to meet each other. We know that social contacts are a little bit dangerous in these times but they are very important for your wider health. It is necessary to keep a balance between stopping the epidemic and keeping people healthy.’ The Swedish approach relies on trust rather than enforcement, going to the heart of how Swedes see their society.



Dr. Scott Atlas Focuses on Re-Opening Now


Time For Civil Disobedience Now? shows that because President Trump replaced Dr. Fauci with Dr. Atlas, America has been spared the need for mass protests like those that rocked England, Germany, Spain, Poland, Serbia, and Canada in August. Historic Protests Grow Against COVID Policies! reports on the August 29 protests in London and Berlin. Humanity Is Awakening Now! shows the growing global shift in consciousness now.

Meet Trump's new coronavirus adviser Dr. Scott Atlas, a Stanford physician who frequently criticized lockdown measures and believes in the full reopening of schools reports:

President Donald Trump has taken on a new coronavirus adviser who shares his belief that schools and college football should resume in the fall — as he continues to be at odds with top experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci. At the White House's coronavirus briefing on Monday, Trump announced the hiring of Dr. Scott Atlas, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank at Stanford University.

Since the beginning of the US coronavirus outbreak, Atlas has spoken out against imposing lockdown measures, saying it impedes herd immunity and is costing the lives of people too afraid to seek emergency medical treatment for other issues. "In the absence of immunization, society needs circulation of the virus, assuming high-risk people can be isolated," he wrote in an op-ed for The Hill in April. "It is very possible that whole-population isolation prevented natural herd immunity from developing."

Since May, Atlas has also appeared on Fox News regularly to speak on the US coronavirus crisis, and shared opinions often at odds with many public-health experts' warnings. For one, Atlas has said that he thinks schools should reopen and that the college football season should be able to start without any issues. These ideas seem to line up with the president's own ideas about the pandemic.

Dr. Scott Atlas’ Plan to Re-Open America Now! shows that both Trump and Dr. Atlas may be putting their lives on the line now to rescue America from Fauci’s disastrous COVID “health” policies which Dr. Atlas has described as a “national suicide”. They are having to battle the interests of Big Pharma which want to keep the world in lockdown until their rushed COVID-19 virus is available – which Fauci now says may not be until mid-2021.

WHO Says We Can Never Go Back to Normal!


Since mid-March, Americans have been following COVID-19 “health” policies recommended by the World Health Organization, Dr. Anthony Fauci (Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease at the National Institute of Health and a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force), Bill Gates, the Food and Drug Administration, and the American Medical Association.

We were told in March to lock down for 15 days to “flatten the curve”. Bill Gates (who is not a doctor and was not elected or appointed by any government) later said that the world cannot go fully back to normal until most people get his rushed RNA vaccine. The New York Post article Americans will wear masks for ‘several years’ due to coronavirus: expert predicted says: “Dr. Anthony Fauci, a top official handling the US COVID-19 response, said recently he was cautiously optimistic that there could be a vaccine for the virus by 2021.” So, the goal post kept becoming more elusive.

However, in the August 24 show Tucker: When do we get America back?, Tucker Carlson of Fox News reported that the World Health Organization now says things will NEVER go back to normal! The WHO says that finding a vaccine is no longer the goal. Now, the goal is to re-order society! The leader of the WHO now says, “We will not, we cannot go back to the way things were.”

WHO Director General Tedros Ghebreyesus says COVID-19 is not really a health crisis or a virus. It is about global warming! He says, “The Covid-19 pandemic has given new impetus to the need to accelerate efforts to respond to climate change.” Bill Gates agrees that we will have to sacrifice even more to save the Earth from warming. So, according to the WHO, Gates, and Fauci now, there can never be an end to the lockdown – now because we have to fight global warming! However, in his September 3 article What Happened to Summer?, Dr. Mark Sircus explains why global warming / climate change is a hoax!

Is there a better option for America now that Dr. Scott Atlas is the Coronavirus Health Advisor? See Can Dr. Scott Atlas Save America Now? and Dr. Scott Atlas' Plan to Re-Open America Now!

Re-Open America Now!


Reopen America Now!: Return to Normalcy is a May 2020 book by Brian W. Kelly which shows that policy decisions about how to handle the COVID-19 crisis have unfortunately become politicized when the focus should be exclusively on health, restoration of the economy, and the protection of our Constitutional rights. Ending the lockdown and re-opening America safely now allows students to resume their education, Americans to get back to work, and can save many lives that were put on hold when “elective” medical procedures were suspended.

Amazon Description:

After the 2020 coronavirus nightmare that seemed to never end, the last thing Americans need now is 50 Governors’ extending the goal line. Yet that is what our officials, mostly Democrats are doing. Perhaps Congress should give up their paychecks for the duration.

I am a Democrat. As a Democrat, I know that Democrat leadership does not care about the people. They would have by unanimous consent reauthorized the $2.5 billion requested by the SBA if they cared. My family members benefited from that but the program’s funding ran out because it was helping small businesses as expected. Democrats refused to increase the SBA funding. I rest my case. Democrats, one by one in leadership positions such as governors, do not want America reopened or the economy restarted.

Why? They think it would help Trump get reelected. That’s why the Congress has run out of Washington and are hiding. They no longer represent the people and the Dems are actually for the socialists and not the normal Americans. So what to do? In this book we tell you about how to ignore the negative pleadings of the Democrat leaders and instead work to release the yoke upon America and its economy. Let’s open up and let’s make it good. Read this book to know how to get it done.

FREE PDF: 10 Best Books To Survive Food Shortages & Famines



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I don't have time to reply to much of what you've said, but when I skim read it, I found I disagreed with most points which I had time to read.

The rather obvious cause of the "failure" of the lockdown in America was that it was implemented so haphazardly and enforced so poorly. In most other countries, there wasn't this incredible mixed message sent by government officials that led many US residents to ignore or even just openly defy rules such as mask-wearing and limits on mass assembly as a form of political statement. While you're quoting a source that says the Democrats were to blame, that's pretty funny, considering it's well known that the alt-right has been the group that has been adamant against regulations requiring masks to be warned in public settings and even objected to regulations against the assembly of large groups of people.

Even if you're one of those people who feels compelled to argue that mask-wearing is some serious problem (I didn't read close enough to be sure, but I get that feeling), I hope you'll realize that it is just flat out stupid to argue against rules to limit mass exposure events during a pandemic.

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I hope you'll realize that it is just flat out stupid to argue against rules to limit mass exposure events during a pandemic.

I don't think anyone is arguing that wearing a mask and distancing can help prevent the spread. The argument, at least for me, is more an issue of force. Especially when you're under 60 an healthy. The risk of serious problems or death is extremely low.

Isolate the at-risk population and let the rest of us live. There is no way a government is going to stop a virus that incubates for 1-2 weeks. Government's aren't very capable at doing anything well.

If people want to take the extra precautions, they're completely free to do so. But, others shouldn't be forced into this stuff either. How many small businesses and lives have been destroyed because of whats been done? I haven't found any data on that yet, but I would love to see some. I'd imagine the damage is pretty bad and possibly arguably worse than the virus itself.

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(Edited)

I don't think anyone is arguing that wearing a mask and distancing can help prevent the spread.

As surprising as it may sound, there are actually people arguing those very points. I know, it's really hard to understand. But there are people who go so far as to argue that mask-wearing increases chances of getting sick. It's amazing the tortured reasoning that people can employ to force the result of an analysis to match their desired answer.

I believe many of the economic impacts of the virus would have happened without a formal lockdown. Many people would have stopped non-essential activities regardless of a formal lockdown. I used to eat out every day. For now, I don't eat out at restaurants (although I still get takeout sometimes), despite being allowed to. And I've spoke with many other people who follow this same pattern.

I understand your concern about a required shutdown. Such actions should never be undertaken lightly.

But I think it's a mistake to think no action should have been taken. In fact, I think the actions undertaken were too slow and haphazard, and hence not nearly effective as they should have been. You're arguing that "there is no way a government is going to stop a virus that incubates for 1-2 weeks", but we have directly contradictory evidence from a number of countries around the world. There's a clear correlation in the number of cases/fatality rates and the swiftness and decisiveness of actions taken by the governments in different countries (although medical infrastructure also plays a big part in fatality rates).

Here's a quick sample of what I would have done. I don't have time to go into great detail, because real detail would involve real research and thinking. But these are just some obvious things that came to my mind when we first learned of the virus spreading in China and the response there:

  • Initially locked down as soon as we saw what was going on in China. Why? Because we didn't have good data as to the severity of the situation, and it was possibly quite dire. I actually told most of our staff in the US to begin working from home a week before there was a lockdown anywhere in the US. IMO, this was just common sense. And I later found that our overseas manager quickly took similar actions on his own there.
  • Simultaneously, we should have created interdisciplinary taskforces to analyze how the virus was likely to impact business supply chains, figure out ways to mitigate those problems, and share all their findings with affected companies. If you're an an extreme capitalist, you might think such things should be handled by companies without outside involvement, but that's just not the way real companies operate, unfortunately. They don't share sufficient data to even know where such problems will occur.
  • Beyond that, the government should have passed laws to handle predictable problems that would likely result from the pandemic. As a simple example, we should have immediately suspended evictions. This is another case of common sense: even if you don't care about people losing their homes, it should be obvious that displacing people is only going to lead to spreading of the virus.

If we'd done all these things, I believe we would have already "managed" this crisis, and we would have created all the necessary new infrastructure and policies to be back at near full productive output. As a bonus, we'd be more resistant to future outbreaks of other viruses.

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Another problem is that people think they are okay if they caught the virus asymptomatically or if it "wasn't that bad" when they did have it. The death toll itself isn't the only unsettling aspect of this infection, it is the way it could have long lasting (if not irreversible) affects on someone's body. The economic healthcare toll and decreased quality of life that may potentially happen to the American population post-pandemic should not be ignored.

Sources: https://www.statnews.com/2020/07/27/covid19-concerns-about-lasting-heart-damage/

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/covid-19-hurt-heart-of-elite-athlete-what-that-means-for-everyone-else#Ongoing-fatigue-after-SARS-CoV-2-infection

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(Edited)

But, the difference between states with harsh lockdowns and those without is basically nil. Also, how do you explain countries like Sweden who didn't shutdown at all? At best, it's just delaying the inevitable.

Is this supposed to go on forever? There's never been a human COVID vaccine developed. They're trying to rush one now, who knows what side effects that could have down the road.

Odds are the virus will be here for a long, long time. So people will have to learn to live with it eventually. Living in a perpetual state of fear sure won't fix it.

Of course, people should take precautions. But, as I said before, something like 90% of the deaths are seniors and people with existing health problems (throwing covid patients in nursing homes definitely didnt help anything). Isolate the most at risk populations and educate the rest. Let the rest of us not get our lives destroyed.

The politicization of it all doesn't help either. Riots and protesting are just fine and not causing a bigger spread, motorcycle festival and Trump rallies are "super spreaders" though.

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Actually I agree with you! We should learn to live with COVID and navigate our daily lives better so that the economy can be stabilized. In theory that only works when everyone wears a mask to prevent asymptomatic spread of infection (which in turn helps prevent mutation and advancement of the disease), big events post-pone until after the pandemic, public businesses implement safety protocol, people with office jobs are allowed to work from home (you know, instead of being fired), countries go into strict temporary lockdown early rather than later, and homeowners and renters are both given support so that renters do not become homeless (and get COVID on the streets or in shelters) and so home owners also don't lose everything and become homeless, affordable access to testing is implemented, and schools provide education online from home (instead of cramming children together in a classroom so they can get infected and spread it to their parents and loved ones at home).

As crazy as they may seem to people who aren't you or I, it's actually happening where I live. The Silicon Valley (specifically Santa Clara county) has seen AMAZING results from doing most of the things I just listed above. we've had some of the lowest death and infection rates from COVID in our general area than the rest of California (and other heavily populated states). We've really modeled what successful quarantining and lockdown can do for American cities and counties long term in the prevention of widespread infection spreading. I will say my community is starting to get too overconfident and I see numbers rise as a result of people not wearing masks as much as they did before and not socially distancing as much either, but I am confident we'll get back on track for the most part.

A youtuber who happens to live in my neck of the woods made a video sharing her own observations on the success of our area's quarantine efforts:

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As crazy as they may seem to people who aren't you or I, it's actually happening where I live. The Silicon Valley (specifically Santa Clara county) has seen AMAZING results from doing most of the things I just listed above.

I'm not from there so I can't really say. But, there isn't really any information I can find that says the lockdowns are really that effective. It's just delaying the inevitable. I guess you could say that is effective in that it will keep hospital beds empty longer if needed. But other than that, I've seen no real conclusive evidence that says it's preventing the spread. If there was stronger evidence to support it, I would most likely support it.

No-lockdown Sweden has had 347 deaths per million; lockdown Belgium, with a similar population, has had 763 deaths per million.

Also, most of America is extremely rural. Big cities will need to be more cautious with these sort of things as it's easier to spread things in dense populated areas. There isn't really a one size for all solution. I'm in Indiana. We do have a mask mandate. It's punishable by law as a misdemeanor to not have one on where required. But, in my area, there's not much virus activity. Some places are enforcing the masks, some not. I was just shopping the other day and at least 50% of the people in the store weren't wearing a mask.

My biggest gripe with the whole lockdowns is all the small businesses that have been screwed over. While big business like Walmart and Amazon are posting huge numbers. This isn't the first time there's been a pandemic. The HK flu in the 60s killed over 100k americans and 1 mil+ worldwide and infected millions more. No lockdowns then.

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Actually, the research suggests that lockdowns DO prevent deaths and they DO prevent the spread of infection in the long run.

You can skim over this study if you would like to look at the receipts, or this one, and even this one. NPR's Global Health and Development Correspondent also wrote about it here, and a shorter article written by someone, who's credibility I admittedly cannot verify as much as the other article, can be found here.

Now...Sweden. I doubt you'll get very far in any deep analysis of corona virus when bringing up a small country who's entire culture was KNOWN for being socially distant well before this pandemic happened. Especially one who's death rates are HIGHER than their Scandinavian neighbors who had better legal implementation of lockdowns and quarantine. Also Sweden's economy isn't doing too well even though they never went into a proper lockdown in the first place. All this comes back to my original point: there are health risks involved for ANYONE who catches COVID even if they are asymptomatic so it's dangerous and stupid to think that Sweden is all the better for not going into lockdown early on. it begs the question: What was even the point of Sweden avoiding lockdown when their death rates are nearly proportional to Italy's (the country that's BEGGING for other nations to take COVID seriously and to not make the same disastrous mistakes that they did) and their economy is still suffering?

I don't think you are purposefully being deceitful or acting in bad faith, so I hope this is all helpful and informative to you.

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(Edited)

I never said Sweden was any better per se. Just that they werent really any worse off. Of course their economy will not be doing well. The global economy as a whole is kind of in the shitter now. And I'm sure people there aren't going out as much and still being cautious. The issue here is government mandates. If people want to stay inside and not go out, that's their choice to do so. The effectiveness of the government force is what I'm taking issue with here. Not sure how I'm being deceitful.

And you can find just as many studies that say they don't work. Here's a nice little collection of both sides of studies. It's a couple months old, but the point still stands.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/05/did-the-lockdowns-work/

I guess that's a bit of an issue with it being so politicized. Then there's the issue of how the deaths are recorded.

Countries with higher baseline infections and deaths (Spain, Germany, Italy, UK, and France-cluster 1) fared poorly compared to those who declared lockdown early on (Belgium, Austria, New Zealand, India, Hungary, Poland and Malaysia-cluster 2). Sweden and South Korea, countries without lock-down, fared as good as the countries in cluster 2.

Btw, from the study you linked. It says countries like Sweden and SK without lockdowns fared as good as the countries in cluster 2 that locked down early on.

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(Edited)

Not sure how I'm being deceitful.

"It's just delaying the inevitable" is specifically what I'm arguing is completely false.

Btw, from the study you linked. It says countries like Sweden and SK without lockdowns fared as good as the countries in cluster 2 that locked down early on.

The study that said this was published two and a half months before the article claiming that Swedish COVID death rates were proportional to Italy's was published. I'm not sure if anything changed between when the study was being made and when the author of that article was writing it, I'd have to look at Sweden's COVID progression between late April/early may and late July to double check.

And you can find just as many studies that say they don't work. Here's a nice little collection of both sides of studies. It's a couple months old, but the point still stands.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/05/did-the-lockdowns-work/

This was very helpful to read, thanks for sharing! What I gather from the “Lockdowns Don’t Work” section is that Lockdowns aren’t what makes disease prevention a success, it’s social distancing and putting a stop to large gatherings of people. Based on what major medical institutions are saying staying sanitary and wearing a mask helps too but that’s not necessarily what these studies seem to be focusing on.

From my perspective Lockdown is meant to encourage social distancing and get people to stay home when they don’t need to be out and about. A key take away from those studies could be that what really works to get people to do these things is a change in individual behaviour along with a temporary stop to in person meetings at schools, businesses, and events rather than just completely closing businesses and places of operation, firmly telling people to stay home, and hoping for the best. Where I live people very much keep to themselves, are exhausted all the time from overworking, and are stuck in their own social bubbles. All of that was true even before the pandemic so I suppose it’s no surprise that death and infection rates in my area were so low compared to the rest of California when people were already inclined to behave in a way that prevents them from spreading COVID. From what I understand of Swedish culture people behave similarly there, and that could be one of the reasons they were so good about preventing the spread of COVID.

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I completely agree on this point. The focus only on fatality rates versus other impacts of COVID-19 is a huge mistake.

And to see just how clearly it is ignored, note that this was the only point of your comment above, but look at the reply you got. Your point was completely ignored, and other issues were discussed.

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Any lockdown in America was doomed to fail from the start. The country is far too large and the government doesn't have the kind of reach that a communist one such as China does. It's just not that easy to tell Americans what to do. Especially when it's something like COVID where the information and statistics are HIGHLY politicized and debateable.

I'm in Indiana, we have a mask mandate here. It is a misdemeanor to not wear one inside establishments. But, I was at the store the other day and maybe only 50% of people were wearing them. I was not wearing mine. I will not wear it wherever I can get away with it. Given my demographic, I'm at extremely low risk.

The best course of action on all of this is just to inform people of the issue. Let them know what they can do to protect themselves. And if they want to do that, cool. If not, that's their choice as well. COVID isn't killing people like the plague. The majority of deaths are elderly and people with pre-existing health problems.

That's my $0.02 on the issue. All overblown.

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nice one. Very freedom-ey. I like it. Imagine a world where you are allowed to make your own decisions.

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