Lockdown to Oblivion
Will get MS for this, but I need some perspective to stay sane rn. We locked down in March for two weeks so as not to overwhelm our ICUs and protect our medical workers from suffering the same fate as Italy did. It was nearly guaranteed that in the summer, once the warm weather rolled around, contamination rates will drop and lead to less transmission and thus work places/schools can open up for the fall. Now, we’re locking down every time there’s a spike to protect that incremental life that might be lost if we don’t. Is this still sensible given that the US has been on a quarantined/lockdown state for 6 months now and all other countries who saw an initial spike in March are basically back to business as usual while advising those most vulnerable to stay home and those less vulnerable to take precautions when going to work, etc...? I guess my question is, will we keep oscillating from lock down to semi-opened up to lock down to semi-opened up until the vaccine is developed in 2022/herd immunity reaches 70-90% of our population?
As you alluded to, I believe the initial purpose of the lockdown has shifted from “ensure hospital capacity isn’t overwhelmed” to somehow “lock everything down until the virus is gone”, which is an issue. Thinking back to the initial sentiment around flattening the curve, everyone had mentioned that the cases will end up being the same, but flattening helps hospital capacity.
The only reasonable argument I see for locking down as long as possible is the eventually creation of a vaccine, which will hopefully save those incremental lives you’re referring to. But honestly, still seems we’re a ways out from a proven vaccine so not sure how reasonable it is to stay closed for so long...
I'm all for social distancing for as long as possible until we have a vaccine. That said I feel like the US Government has no idea the psychological impact that sustained social isolation will have on people. Not to mention younger more impressionable children who will probably now be developmentally delayed due to not learning and get engaging in the classroom. I just wish our government would acknowledge these possibilities and provide reasonable tactics to account for social distancing.
Having the next generation of voters be developmentally delayed inherently benefits the government, so there is naturally a misalignment here - and this comment applies regardless of which side of the aisle you are on.
Um , I made no statements about voting or the upcoming election. Who are you talking to lol?
The difference between us and all the countries that have started to open up again is that they managed to successfully flatten the curve while we failed spectacularly due to no one taking lockdown, social distancing, or masks seriously. Unfortunately the warm weather and summer didn't make the virus magically disappear and the current levels of transmission and new cases in the US everyday makes it significantly more unsafe to open up than in most other countries that have gone back to normal.
If everyone had just taken March and April seriously we would have been back to normal life by now.
It’s exactly like back in elementary school, if the class shut up you’d go to lunch early. But the class never shut up and you’re at the back of the lunch line again.
Except trade longer lunch line wait for 160k+ dead, a lot of stuff being closed, businesses going under or being hammered (except for Amazon- especially with AWS damn they must be killing it), and much more.
I’m honestly surprised more Americans don’t smoke cigarettes just to prove doctors wrong that they won’t get cancer
This is true. But at the same time, people are way too paranoid when it comes to locking down. There are guidelines that people can follow to open up safely, even when cases spike back up. I've noticed that many people don't even want to take the slightest of the risks and just resort to being locked down.
Why is this comment getting money shit?
It’s an intelligence problem.. most americans are simply dumb as fuck and think wearing a mask in crowded indoor venues is somehow infringing in their rights
Those bums pushing for more restrictions and lockdowns just want to justify staying unemployed for welfare. Deep down, they don't care about people dying. They'e afraid their lack of skill and ambition will be exposed once the virus is gone and life goes back to normal.
Guaranteed by who? Trump? I live in Europe and not once did I hear similar garbage on the news saying that it wouldn't spread as much during the summer. Without scientific evidence or hypothesis testing there is no way anyone could possibly support that claim.
I believe that it was early speculation. This thing is horribly labeled. Coronaviruses are a broad class of similar viruses that include the flu, SARS, MERS, etc. I believe that the idea was that if most of them subside when things warm up, this one probably would too. (That's why the winter is 'flu season') Unfortunately, we're all learning as we go along--even the experts. Sometimes they'll get things wrong even after having studied virology for decades. Making a best guess then admitting you were wrong and modifying it is a hallmark of good real-time science.
Ppl are going to restaurants and shopping centers and are at bars where I live. In fact, I'd say we were never truly locked down and largely reopened everything by mid-May.
And that's why the U.S. is just going to have to live with this thing until there's widespread vaccination/immunity. We simply weren't disciplined enough to begin with.
Wear a mask, wash you hands, and practice social distancing. Then, you can go back to normal life. If most people respected these 3 super easy things and followed them, (why is it so difficult for people to follow these guidelines?) we wouldn't have nearly 2% of the population with COVID.
I didn't move to the US to be around bunch of crybabies who use "freedom" as an excuse to be inconsiderate jerks.
While i agree wearing a mask and washing your hands are both a "super easy thing" to follow, social distancing is not. You are asking people and businesses to completely change the way they live or operate in a matter of months. It has a psychological, economic, and physical toll on everyone. Perhaps if you live in some suburb with your wife, and your life has always been going to work then going home, it would be an easy transition. But that's not the case for many people.
The only way to defeat the virus is to get out there and defeat as a community. That means developing some type of immunity.
Staying locked up helps the short term but doesn’t actually defeat the virus. I mean, the look at Europe now. There cases became so minimal in Italy because they locked everyone up but now as they have reopened their cases are climbing back up. It is just not logical to stay locked down in hopes are getting cases to a near zero number.
Sure the US probably handled it worse than others but we can not afford to shut everything down every time a state has a one day spike of 5 more cases from prior day. I’m no tin foil hat wearer but if anyone actually believes the case/deaths numbers being reported are accurate than I don’t even know what to tell you. Also, the media/government has yet to tell me why deaths are a near half of what they were at the peak yet cases now are over half of what they were. Is it more young people getting it? Was the mishandling of nursing homes truly the reason for overcapacity ICUs and increased deaths? Is the virus weakening? What is it? I’m sorry for anyone who has suffered from COVID or has lost a loved one but at the end of the day, the virus has a near 99.9% survival rate. Everyone claiming the long term effects, none of that has been proven yet.
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality
14% Italy, 10.9% Mexico, 3.2% US
Lol these are case fatality ratios. You want to look at infection fatality ratio. The former includes only those who had a confirmed positive case by a medical authority, and thus does not include the majority of actual infections.
Can’t believe it’s August and people are still not understanding this thing.
False.
A true death rate is never based simply off of confirmed cases. This is why the actual flu rate is called an “assumed” death rate because they estimate all those that have been infected but not tested.
you are taking confirmed cases divided by deaths. There are many more actual cases than confirmed cases, many scientists believe it's a factor of over 10x.
Agreed
Yeah, but my situation could be if I go to Muay Thai class to have fun, I may bring the virus back to a senior living facility that I visit part time as an essential caretaker.
It has definitely affected me going out to big events. Its super depressing. I'm not scared of the virus, I'm scared of bringing it to others and it being lethal for them.
I find it interesting though. It feels like there is some social/hysteria layer built in to this thing that I can’t figure out.
Pneumonia has killed more people since March in every single age bracket except for ~70/80 yrs or older (according the CDC).
So, have you “ever cared” about pneumonia? As someone who has actually had caretaking responsibilities pre-C19 do you feel like you are placing more weight on this?
Curious how your views have changed over time. No sarcasm/cheap shot - genuinely curious about your experience.
So, I assume years from now when this pandemic is over, you are going to socially distance during flu season, right? You could unknowingly spread the flu to a senior caretaker and kill someone who is at-risk. Why haven't we shut down businesses last flu season?
Damn, aren't you a tough guy
People are going to look back at this part of history and laugh at the complete idiocy of leadership. We have destroyed the lives of millions so your 85 year old grandma can wait another year or so to die in a nursing home
I absolutely hate this. Hours continue to be brutal, social interactions have crawled to a bare minimum. It takes a lot of willpower to resist the urge to just get piss drunk on the couch every day. I barely leave my apartment and I am very depressed.
I say open up everything back up and those who die, will die.
Absolutely
I wear a mask in public etc, but the biggest takeaway for me is how many people blindly obey what the gov’t and “science” tells them despite the message constantly changing. If you question any aspect of this you are “literally killing old people” and are considered part of the problem. The blind obedience to government figures and media is like a religion to some people.
The ironic thing is that the scientists and experts at the AAP and CDC literally have said we need to do things like reopen schools. People have been so scared shitless by the media, that they are now turning their backs on these experts/scientists. It's absolutely insane.
Cigarette smoking kills 480k a year. Second hand smoke kills 41k a year. That’s 3x as many deaths as COVID yet we still sell cigarettes and you can still smoke outside in public. Where’s the outrage there? Covid has been so blown out of proportion. Destroying the economy, putting everyone’s lives on hold, just to protect an extremely small subset of the population who isn’t living more than 10 more years anyway. What a joke.
Agreed
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