Thoughts on Covid Lockdowns 3 years after the fact?
3 years ago today, the US announced the '15 Days to Slow the Spread' initiative to combat Covid. What are your thoughts on the covid response in hindsight? Which country/countries do you think had the best covid response?
I was looking at some threads from 2020/2021 and lockdowns seemed to be quite popular. Many people were ridiculing and scolding people who were anti-lockdown/mask/restrictions. For those who were pro-lockdown/masks/restrictions, has your mind changed on these policies?
Every study that's been run on the costs vs outcomes have shown that the anti-lockdown side was 100% correct. Sweden is a shining example to the rest of the EU. The entire world is still suffering from the aftereffects of decisions made because of the lockdowns and those will repercussions continue to be felt for years to come. Not to even begin touching on the deaths of despair, poor health outcomes due to people not getting the care they needed since it wasn't covid-related, or what it's done to an entire generation of young children who missed out on years of critical early childhood development - those damages are verging on incalculable. Anyone who even tries to argue that the lockdowns were in any way shape or form effective or worth it are the real "science" deniers, and with each passing month the vaccine debate is trending in the exact same direction.
Lesson hopefully learned: when big governments and corporations unite in their messaging saying that they're here to help and only doing something for your benefit, you turn and run in the opposite direction.
Edit:
Masks did nothing. We knew at the start they did nothing. Fauci even admitted at the start that they did nothing. Then they became a tool for measuring compliance, for forcing conformity over a population, and then for virtue signaling between those who supported the lockdown regime. They were literal theater as evidenced by the unending parade of politicians, health officials, and media personalities caught putting them on just for their "performances" in front of the camera and removing them right afterward, in addition to outright violating the very lockdown rules they were advocating for. They flat out lied about treatment alternatives like Ivermectin, trying to pass it off as "horse paste" when it's a drug that won a Nobel prize for its use in humans and is one of the WHO's essential medicines.
Instead, our utterly corrupt pharmaceutical regulatory establishment pushed a vaccine which has a "99% effectiveness" tag on it because it reduces your likelihood of death from 0.001% to 0.00001% (so, technically correct tho debatable it's that effective) with an immune response that's weaker than your own natural immune system's. A vaccine that prevents neither the catching nor the spreading of the virus itself, making all sense of "requiring a negative test OR proof of vaccination" an obvious overreach and pointless exercise in government power. The fact that the US still has this requirement for people flying in legally from other countries is astoundingly disgusting considering you can just walk across the Southern border without so much as an ID check. And did I mention that this vaccine was also the most profitable drug in history by a magnitude of >100x? Not bad for not even being able to prevent you from catching the virus it's literally changing your DNA to protect you from, a virus less likely to kill you than the average flu unless you happen to be 75+ or with multiple comorbidities. Definitely no moral hazard there. No sir. They just care about people out of the goodness of their hearts.
The famous nine words, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help".
One of the very few things I agreed with Reagan on.
Please cite.
I'd be willing to grant that from a purely economic perspective, the people who advocated for ignoring the COVID-19 virus were correct. On the flip side, the US recorded something over a million excess deaths during COVID, and it is nearly impossible to argue that number would have been lower if everyone had just gone out and continued to live life. It probably would have been significantly higher.
It depends on what you think is more important, I guess. The government asked people to stay home and be safe and wear masks so that citizens wouldn't die. Frankly, many people didn't bother with that, so it's hard to say how impactful it really was versus the impacts of the virus of itself. But I think government's first priority is the life and safety of it's citizens, not gross economic output.
Do you have a source on that?
Source?
A source. I need a source.
Sorry, I mean I need a source that explicitly states your argument. This is just tangential to the discussion.
No, you can't make inferences and observations from the sources you've gathered. Any additional comments from you MUST be a subset of the information from the sources you've gathered.
You can't make normative statements from empirical evidence.
Do you have a degree in that field?
A college degree? In that field?
Then your arguments are invalid.
No, it doesn't matter how close those data points are correlated. Correlation does not equal causation.
Correlation does not equal causation.
CORRELATION. DOES. NOT. EQUAL. CAUSATION.
You still haven't provided me a valid source yet.
Nope, still haven't.
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You are so right! Protecting the lives of citizens is super important to the Government!
It only took FEMA a few weeks to get rolling over that chemical train derailment.
They're shipping 100s of billions to Ukraine to fight a losing war defending their border but leaving our own wide open to criminals and traffickers.
They'll do nothing to address that pesky fentanyl epidemic that's directly contributed to by said border weaknesses.
They'll set up a healthcare system that empowers insurance companies and administrators over actual care providers while explicitly structuring the industry from the ground up to require that they increase prices in order to grow their profits.
They'll shut down gyms and tell people to stay at home and indoors in the middle of a pandemic that overwhelmingly effects overweight people with vitamin D deficiency over all other demographic subcategories.
They'll tell working class people who had no other way to provide for their families that they are "non-essential" and therefore were not allowed to work or risk being thrown in a cage.
They'll cripple or shut down millions of small businesses nationwide while leaving big box retailers and other large corps unmolested during a time when they are facing unprecedented financial strains directly resulting from the pandemic response.
But it's only because your life & safety is so important to the Government that they would ever go to such extremes. 🤡
Source.
I know that to be a conservative is to be a troll, because the facts so rarely support your beliefs, but I'm ready to have an intelligent discussion when you are. As I said, I'll even grant you that the shutdowns related to COVID-19 caused economic harm; frankly, that seems incontrovertible. My question is, how many dead Americans is it worth to wipe out that loss? Many people died from COVID, or because hospitals were overrun with COVID patients and couldn't process others... and the federal/state response had to balance "how many people will die" versus "how much economic harm will we do". If you aren't acknowledging that fundamental issue, then you shouldn't be pretending to be an adult here.
With hindsight, everything is easier. I happen to think that preservation of life is more important than preservation of property, and that the US government as a whole reacted appropriately. You don't. I imagine that if many of your loved ones were ill and died because they couldn't get treatment in May 2020 in a state that didn't "lock down" (in your parlance) because they thought it made political sense to let people get ill if they wanted, you'd be changing your tune. Isn't that what being a conservative is all about? Empathy for those you knows, disdain for those you don't?
Lmfao at the source bit
Don't you know that if they admit the truth, Ozy and his alt left buddies won't be able to inflict draconian authoritarian measures in other issues? They can't admit they are being way more totalitarian (in the name of virtue signaling) than they ever accuse the right of being
I notice how you never actually provided your source though? You explicitly mentioned that you have several studies which all prove that lockdown was bad, or something similar, and yet you become fucking unhinged when you get asked to provide your studies.
Cochrane Review is about as authoritative as it gets and their conclusion, released this months, is that masking accomplished fuck all. Other research suggesting that masking not only did nothing to stop transmission, but actually worsened the severity of infection for the wearer - https://townhall.com/tipsheet/scottmorefield/2022/06/05/new-study-mask-…
"The government asked people to stay home and be safe and wear masks." This is a complete non-sequitur. It was known at the time that ppl reusing single-use cloth masks, as 99% of ppl did, did nothing to prevent transmission. So where's the correlation between wearing a mask and "safety?"
Also, the government asked people to stay home? They asked them to wear a mask? C'mon, dawg. And, frankly, the most discouraging revelation to come from COVID wasn't that all of our public health organizations repeatedly shit all over themselves and lost all institutional trust, it was that the American public didn't kick back on the mandates en masse. I'm not talking about kicking back immediately before everyone knew what the fuck was going on, but after over 2 fucking years where it become abundantly clear that the masking, lockdowns, limited capacity, etc. was COMPLETELY ineffective, the technocrats and politicians who rammed it down our throats weren't abiding by it themselves, and they were continually lying, not incorrect but lying, to us about everything COVID related - from masking efficacy, to death rates, to symptomatic treatments, to vaccine efficacy, to the origins of the virus itself.
Many died due to lack of access to care because Covid shut down most frontline providers. These were largely already very sick and older people, and Covid likely accelerated their deaths, but what was their quality of life and expectancy as a baseline? I am not trying to be overly harsh, but if you look at the statistics, it is telling.
Yea, you aren't going to get a quote from him because they pulled it out of their ass lol. Their arguments are so solid that apparently they have to make up studies to back it lol. A lot of conservatives are just having a tought time dealing with the fact that reality often doesn't support their viewpoint so now they have recently decided to just make up their own facts/science. Sad.
Bro can’t understand basic logical argumentation 💀
Don't let facts get in the way of your story, bro
https://jogh.org/2022/jogh-12-05017
Largest Mass Formation in history. Mattias Desmet is someone to read if anyone is interested in understanding the COVID response.
Solid take, but nobody is asking the real question: how's BBBY doing bud?
Bankruptcy pricing after it's been established that's off the table with the preferred equity + warrants raise? Picked up another 20k BBBY shares and a few new GME leaps today to close out the week. Just rolling cash on hand after selling my puts on banks from last week and buying this sweet dip!
Also when the media, in unison, literally parrots the same exact lines and no one is allow to question them at all, you know something is very wrong. We also now know that the virus was created in a lab by the Chinese government with funding from the NIH/Fauci. Believe whatever you like, but I don't believe the leak was an accident and neither do I believe that it was coincidentally leaked during the 2020 elections.
Enjoy some double irony when you see who's pointing this out
+1. By far and large, only the stupid ass libs were pro masks + lockdowns
You lost me at Sweden.
Basically any economic study shows that their lax approach did not significantly increase economic output compared to other Nordic countries while at the same time roughly triple the number of deaths. https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-03-31/sweden-covid-policy-w…
I think the initial “2 weeks to slow the spread” plan was well-founded. There was a real risk of hospitals, especially in dense areas, being overrun and causing a general collapse in the healthcare system.
The subsequent issues in my mind were twofold:
First, we never established what “flattening the curve” actually meant. It sounds horrible, but there are a certain number of deaths that we accept to keep society running (national speed limit of 30 anyone? didn’t think so). When making societal decisions, you have to do so based on statistics and principles, but establishing the appropriate level is nigh impossible - no one wants to look a child in the eye and tell them that their mother’s death was an acceptable sacrifice for the rest of us. This made it extremely difficult to get back to normal even as the curve flattened
Second, the issue became massively politicized and caused people to side blindly with their tribes. I know countless republicans who were terrified of the disease when it was portrayed as this impending plague that China was hiding, and they were massive proponents of lockdowns and masks even when very few Americans were actually dying - then once it became a political hot button issue, they all flipped 180 degrees overnight and COVID wasn’t real even as death rates in the US skyrocketed. Conversely, I also knew countless democrats who were very pro-science upfront and then clung to masks even in scenarios where they were unnecessary and to isolation long after it made sense to do so. People began to identify with an all-or-nothing mentality, which was highly counterproductive
My guess is that 50 years from now, we look at it as a logical reaction to something unknown and deadly, but we also mismanaged the response such that it was both less effective (due to noncompliance) and protracted (due to tribalism and inertia)
I think this is a very good view on what happened now in retrospect. I'm no doctor (and therefore will not express any opinion on medical science), but I really hope that we do analyze the best practices from what worked well and didn't. Granted, that exact approach is what governments/the medical profession claims to do after something like this happens and we make the same mistakes anyway, but I completely agree that the data is going to be very important as to how to make a decision in the future.
I will merely point out that wearing a mask when it is no longer necessary is a personal choice that impacts no one. Refusing to wear a mask when it is effective in slowing the spread of a virus is dangerous to other people. So while you are right at a high level, that people blindly clung to whatever they're "tribe" told them to do, you are kind of wrong in making this a case of "both sides." One "tribe" erred on the side of caution and decency, the other decided that their comfort was more important than other people's lives.
Also, masks do slow the spread of the virus, and wearing one does make you somewhat less likely to be infected. So it's not actually unreasonable to continue wearing a mask, not just for COVID but for all the other workaday viruses that make the rounds every year.
I entirely agree with the efficacy of masks. I disagree that the people I’m referring to were solely speaking for themselves. I have no issue with individuals who continue to wear masks today or with private businesses that choose to enforce masking (although I’d prefer not to). Perhaps I should have clarified, but I’m thinking specifically of individuals I know who wanted (and in some cases still want) this enforced via public institutions and policies after vaccines became widely available.
“Erred on the side of caution” is quite the understatement lol. You guys wear masks outside alone, some of you still do
I thought we had established what flattening the curve was--implementing a policy to prevent the overwhelming of the healthcare system, which was pretty much successful. The problem is, the Covidians morphed that into a "zero Covid" policy while failing to establish a viable, long-term plan to get the world back to normal. You had some cities in the U.S. that were in effective lockdown until the summer of 2021, refusing to establish a long-term plan to get back to normal. You had totally arbitrary policies about physical distancing, building capacities, vaccine requirements, school closures, etc. because politicians were desperate to show that they were in control.
What saddens me the most is how the American public lusted for authoritarianism. They rewarded virtually every politician that engaged in the most arbitrary, fascistic, un-American behaviors--governors Gavin Newsom, Kathy Hochul, Gretchen Whitmer, Phil Murphy, for example. Donald Trump, for all of his many failures as a human being, had the opportunity to act like the fascist he has been labeled, yet when push came to shove, those accusing Trump of fascism shut down churches and small businesses and worked hand in hand with major corporations, they muzzled people literally (with masks) and figuratively (through censorship), and cost countless people their jobs through un-scientific, illogical vaccine mandates. They acted like petty tyrants and the American public rewarded most of them. And because of that, I despise my own country. I no longer consider myself a patriotic American because we as a nation stand for nothing.
I went to an outdoor bar in early 2021 and they were not allowing people to stand by their chairs under an umbrella (in the rain), forcing us to sit in a wet chair instead that wasn't under an umbrella. Insanity.
Similar for me. I went to an inside bar in Washington, D.C. in 2021. If you stood up from your seat at your table (these were tall bar tables) you had to put on a mask; if you sat back down you could remove the mask. The waiter got on me several times about it. Later that evening, the waiter and my friend (this was a gay bar) went to the back room and you know the rest.
I was cool with 2 weeks.. maybe even 2 months.
After that it just got really stupid.. I’m mostly mad about how I didn’t have an LLC or fake company to take advantage of the PPP and corporate bailout bullshit, which of course was a literal wealth transfer to those who mostly didn’t even need it
Also my hairline receded at least half an inch. MotherFUCKERS
You mean a wealth transfer program, which the sitting President demanded not have any oversight, was abused? *shocked pikachu face*
If you are so upset, you should advocate for a post-facto investigation into recipients of PPP funds. I'd be on board with that. I agree there was a lot of fraud - but that's to be expected, given the rollout and the extreme lack of interest from the executive branch in enforcing effective disbursement of funds. Shocking, just shocking, that a known con man and grifter made it easier to grift the government.
There's a lot of history already found about the PPP funds, but I agree more research and digging should be done. Entirely too much money of fraudelenty appropriated funds. All these people running around buying Lamborghinis or homes or else off of fake paper.
The US did not have lockdowns, and all the voluntary requests were pretty roundly ignored.
Wow what a shitty take.
It isn't a take, it's a correction. If you want to be taken seriously, use your words. No one was forced to "lock down." Citizens in China were locked down by their government; as we saw for the last three years, that didn't happen to many Americans. About the worst that happened was a bunch of private businesses and hospitals demanded that customers/patients employ basic decency when entering those spaces.
So yeah, the "shitty take" is the one that claims that the fairly gentle calls to respect your fellow citizens' health and safety were some kind of dystopian nightmare government intrusion into your lives. Like being asked to wear a piece of cloth over your face for twenty minutes is equivalent to being in a concentration camp or some such nonsense.
🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡
A Guide to State Coronavirus Reopenings and Lockdowns
Perhaps you don't know what "lockdown" means. I wouldn't be surprised.
Use your words. I know you have them. And once you've found the accurate ones (and "lockdown" self-evidently isn't one of them), we can debate the important issue, which is whether several weeks of moderate restrictions on most businesses was an acceptable price to pay to prevent additional death.
Somehow, the whole "COVID-19 restrictions are worse that concentration camps!" crowd never seems to look past their own comfort and think of the safety of others.
This is patently false, and you know it. Everyone repeating this years after the fact knows it, but they are hoping that no one remembers what took place. Unfortunately for you, the internet is forever and the last 3 years of history have been more well-documented than any other time in human history.
I still have the letter explaining that I was an essential employee somewhere I was forced to carry around with me on my commute in case the Gestapo stopped me and asked why I was dangerously walking outside.
You even gave up the ghost in your reply...you admit that there were lockdowns, but it's alright because they were "necessary" and perhaps not enforced at the point of a gun...although perhaps you'd have liked that?
So you can point me to the instances of the American government locking people into their homes. Please do! I'm more than willing to admit when I'm wrong.... but not on your assertion that "the internet is forever"
Ah yes, the Gestapo, that most American of institutions. Your absurd hyperbole does a lot to add credence to your argument. Can you find me an example of someone being arrested or otherwise detained for not having this letter, or one like it? Because your an anonymous stranger on the internet referring to the police as the Gestapo - your credibility isn't particularly high.
Where did I "admit there were lockdowns"? I understand that foolish children, like yourself, aren't used to being challenged and thus get to live in their own make believe world, but I'm not in the habit of letting people put words in my mouth.
Find me an example, and preferably enough to prove that this was a systemic government policy, of people being physically or legally locked in their homes, and I'll gladly admit I'm wrong. Or, you could be an adult, admit that no one did more than ask that you stay home to prevent the spread of the virus, and move on. But if you had the maturity to do that, you wouldn't hold the beliefs you do, so I shall not hold my breath
How do you manage to top yourself with the worst possible takes? Literally 14 MS and you still defend a position which is patently false. Why do you enjoy trolling so much? Or do you genuinely believe this nonsense?
Well, the actual Merriam Webster definition that was cited leaves some room for dispute - technically the government did not prevent you from going to a bar, it merely did not let the bar open. Most bars aren't open on Sunday morning, either - but we don't call that a lockdown.
And in a larger sense, when you look at the range of reactions across the globe, it's also quite clear that the United States took one of the most hands-off approaches to COVID possible. No curfew. No literally being locked in a building. Just "bars and major venues cannot seat people indoors".
And why in the world do you think I care about MS? Especially if I don't know who is throwing it? I care about reasoned, supported arguments that prove me wrong or at least cast considerable doubt, and I'm always willing to hear those. Some anonymous idiot throwing shit... it's like asking if you'll take investing advice from an anonymous online poll, or whether you'll ask some people who know what they're talking about to explain why they believe what they do. I'm sure some of the anonymous poll answerers know what they are talking about, but maybe not.
I mean, they guy who throws MS at me and then compares the extremely mild inconvenience to which he was put in 2020 as "being stopped by the Gestapo" is not an opinion I am inclined to value.
Feel like it completely ruined the vibe in many urban areas
Annihilated.
Anyone telling you “NYC is back” because they took a walk outside at lunch and saw people buzzing about, is a certified moron.
The small proportion of mom & pops that survived are sucking wind. The city is dead at night relative to what it once was. Even CVS type places rarely stay open 24 hours now. We’ve permanently destroyed city life as it was once known.
almost exactly 3y from my original post on this, interesting to revisit this
https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forum/off-topic/how-im-navigating-the-c…
now for some personal reflections
in closing, I know many are still struggling and while I don't have as much to say generally as I did in previous years, I'm always happy to do Q&A whether public or private so if you need somebody, I got you
Refreshing post. I'm not immune to being upset by people 'forgetting' about lockdowns and pretending the negative impacts don't exist but like the positive to this post. Couple things I did during pandemic (which was actually a net positive on my own life, though I recognize that's not the case with lots of folks -- esp kids in college. I was lucky enough to be a young professional):
1. Reconnecting again with family. Had a pretty 'meh' relationship with fam before pandemic but living with them for 1+yr really helped us reconnect and really pushed me to recognize how much I love and appreciate my parents. That time with them, just talking aroung the house, taking walks, watching movies, taking long drives, etc I'll always treasure as a special time
2. Reconnecting again with friends. Bunch of long-standing connections in my geo at the time that I'd neglected...we were all living at home and hung out a TON. I still have really strong connections with all of those folks now and am so thankful for having rekindled those bonds. Also reconnected with a few cousins as well. Same thing for FT / phone calls, I made sure to stay in touch with everyone I cared about through the pandemic. Still stay in touch with pretty much all of them, and all of those bonds without exception are stronger than they were pre pandemic
3. Losing weight. Lopped off probably 15lb through the pandemic. Continuing to work on that now, think I'll be pretty happy with BF% by mid summer or so
4. Getting real good at work. Working remote over Covid offered plenty of free time / flexibility away from a boss who could be sometimes toxic (though very sharp) and let me blossom as a professional. I also did a bunch of side reading that's made me a much better investor
5. Taking time to reflect on what I love, where I want to be LT city-wise. Wont' say too much here for sake of anonymity but I'm hoping to make the geographic / position pivot this year if possible. Either way was eye-opening
All said, I had a fantastic time during Covid. Only things I'd change is really accelerating weight loss over Covid but otherwise not much else. Pandemic was not easy to get through for many I realize, but these kinds of positive experiences are actaully more common than you'd think -- several of my friends have commented the same. Great things are there if you just look for them and work towards them
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"Jy-na"
https://jogh.org/2022/jogh-12-05017
Coronavirus pandemic in the Nordic countries: Health policy and economy trade-off
Furqan B Irfan1,2, Raoul Minetti3, Ben Telford4, Fahad S Ahmed5, Ayesha Y Syed6, Nick Hollon4, Seth C Brauman4, William Cunningham1, Mohamed E Awad4, Khaled J Saleh4, Akbar K Waljee7,8, Nele Brusselaers9,10
Results
Sweden’s health policy, being by far the most relaxed response to COVID-19, was found to have the largest COVID-19 incidence and mortality, and the highest AWPC increases for both indicators (13.5, 95% CI = 5.6, 22.0, P < 0.001; 6.3, 95% CI = 3.5, 9.1, P < 0.001). Denmark had the highest number of COVID-19 tests per capita, consistent with their approach of increased testing as a preventive strategy for disease transmission. Iceland had the second-highest number of tests per capita due to their mass-testing, contact tracing, quarantine and isolation response. Only Norway had a significant increase in unemployment (AMPC = 2.8%, 95% CI = 0.7-4.9, P < 0.009) while the percentage change in real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was insignificant for all countries.
Conclusions
There was no trade-off between public health policy and economy during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Nordic region. Sweden’s relaxed and delayed COVID-19 health policy response did not benefit the economy in the short term, while leading to disproportionate COVID-19 hospitalizations and mortality.
Anti-lockdown people were right in the long run. That said, they were very wrong early on in the pandemic.
You don't just say "*$&% it" when you don't have enough information to evaluate the situation.
Problem on the other hand was that we didn't pivot back to normality fast enough when we knew that it wasn't as deadly as expected. Other side of the coin. You have clarity of information but are choosing not to admit that you were wrong.
I think even the most avid “anti-lockdowner” was okay with two weeks, or even two months
What you describe as anti-lockdowner is the most rational and normal response. However, I knew people who were rabidly anti-lockdown even during the first two weeks. Those people were wrong even if they were in the long run right on THIS pandemic.
From the same study:
Sweden had 10x the hospitalizations and deaths from COVID
meanwhile, the Swedish stock market fared the worst of all these countries
and for the coup de grace, the 1 year after COVID - Norway had GDP of (0.6%) meanwhile Sweden had (2.1%). Sweden's economy shrunk much more than its peers. What a winning strategy!
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They told us Florida would be a zombie apocalypse. They told us Florida was murdering their own citizens by not implementing strict lockdowns and vaccine passports. And yet, somehow, magically, Florida, New York and California all had similar outcomes.
Florida objectively had better outcomes than both and had a net gain in population (I believe either largest in the country or just behind Texas) while the former both lost electoral votes due to how many people fled their policies. It couldn't be more obvious how superior Florida's response was.
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This is a futile argument to have with anti-lockdown conservative-leaning types, who in general place no value on the preservation of lives saved through Covid measures, and focus solely on the economic harm incurred. In March 2020, when we barely knew what we were dealing with, you already had GOP leaders like the Texas Lt. Gov Dan Patrick going on TV saying that seniors should be willing to sacrifice their lives for the economy.
The younger WSO demo is also less affected given they don't have kids, and even their parents aren't yet in the higher age Covid-risk demo. You may be singing a different tune if your grandparents were in a nursing home, your parents were 65+, and your newborn couldn't be vaxxed.
We also have no way to quantify how much worse the death toll would have been, had we not taken some (short-lived) drastic measures. Even with all the measure enacted, we still lost over a million Americans to Covid. Look at the public death companies. They've been hemorrhaging YOY volume and deaths in many major metros are down 30% from 2020/21.
What kind of tune would you be singing about NY Dems, specifically Andrew Cuomo, who literally was sending people who tested positive for COVID INTO nursing homes?
I know that democrats played this whole thing perfectly and republicans just lost on all fronts but maybe they made a few mistakes as well?
lockdown pushed by old mfckers in their 40s/50s who are 1000% satisfied with being 24/7 closed in their home with their family and having their children 24/7 in surveillance aka in their rooms
for me, as a college student, fck this sht. Instead of traveling, meeting people, and studying abroad, I stayed in a fcking room looking at a screens and walls all fcking day
who tf will give me back those 1.5 years?? will u congress?
MFCKERS
besides, It was fcking cringe to see the Covid movement w/ articles on how to manage mental health during covid, how to connect with others while in lockdown, etc. give me a fcking break sensible fckers.
No lockdowns and let evolution do its job (aka survival of the fittest)
Sack the fuck up, the world doesn't owe you shit. My grandma hated staying inside too, stop projecting your inability to make an enjoyable life in this cold world onto old people.
It's actually incredible to see that people are still clinging to the hysterical beliefs that have done so much damage for 3 years. You'd think they'd have learned something by now.
People were raked over the coals for:
1) suggesting it came from a lab in China - which it now seems almost certain that it did
2) saying that masks don't do much which we now all know they don't do much (they do a little sometimes, not hating on masks just mask nazis)
3) suggesting that kids and other low-risk populations should be allowed to continue on with their lives; today, almost everyone gets that
4) questioning whether a rushed vaccine that's being aggressively forced upon people might be something worth waiting for . . and now we've seen some countries pull back on boosters and generally a much more balanced approach to the vaccine vs. 1-2 years ago when you were made out to be some kind of monster if you didn't want it
5) suggesting that ivermectin and (other drugs I forgot the name of) could be a good post-infection treatment and isn't just a "horse dewormer" - which the mainstream media's favorite doctor Sanjay Gupta admitted on Rogan was a valid drug to take
6) suggesting that variants might, you know, do what variants do and get weaker over time so that they can spread and survive . . we now understand of course that's exactly what happens, but who can forget just a year ago when whatever variant was being talked about like it's the Black Death or something
It should be obvious to anyone by now that there was a massive failure of critical thinking on the part of those who took every single opportunity to freak out and let Covid be the only consideration in every decision of every single day.
And many haven't changed: just yesterday CNN was tweeting that Long Covid will cost the US economy $20 trillion. That's right, the annual GDP of this country is what long Covid (a special set of symptoms targeting anxious yuppies . . maybe it hides in avocado toast) is supposedly going to cost this country.
For anyone thinking "well, it seems high but GDP is an annual number and long Covid could last years" - consider the fact that a 3% drop in GDP is enough to cause a recession that everyone feels in their daily lives one way or another . . and we're supposed to believe that long Covid is going to be 30x that level of impact. Long Covid - 30x the economic damage of a recession.
Just one example of the absolute lunacy we're dealing with here. And they haven't given up on the variants either. Can hit google right now and you'll still see people selling the latest one.
It's truly insane. I'm not sure what's causing it. But I cant help but notice that all the Branch Covidians I know are also big believers on other unacceptably moronic things like regulating "disinformation", male pregnancy and making race & gender the primary consideration in every judgment of every human they meet.
A big portion of our country is completely insane and the silver lining of this experience is that I'll never, ever doubt that again.
> It's truly insane. I'm not sure what's causing it. But I cant help but notice that all the Branch Covidians I know are also big believers on other unacceptably moronic things like regulating "disinformation", male pregnancy and making race & gender the primary consideration in every judgment of every human they meet.
> A big portion of our country is completely insane and the silver lining of this experience is that I'll never, ever doubt that again.
Remember when you mocked “Covid overreacters” and boldly claimed less than 500 people would die from Covid in the entire U.S.?
I do.
Says more about you than it does about me. Enjoy that 5th booster though.
Genuine question: multiple Asian countries were able to do much better than the US in terms of slowing the virus and this what cases did hit don’t overload the hospital system. I am referring to the early days kind you, in Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Vietnam, Singapore, etc. not the three years of deuchebagger dystopian lockdowns china kept up long after vaccines came out. For the first six months Asia outperformed the US in terms of containment and keeping death rate low. Measures included masking, travel bans, quarantining, etc. This bought everyone time until the vaccines came out, at which point vaccinations became mandatory. Worked pretty well. The US was slow to implement travel restrictions until too late, didn’t enforce masking in many areas, and quarantine was patchy at best. Now we have folks crowing about how masks and stay at home orders didn’t work - when I see with my own eyes they clearly did work. So there’s a disconnect for me.
This is completely re-writing the analysis that was going on in the spring of 2020. Most “experts” thought a vaccine would take several years to develop. The Asian policies were not “buying time” for a vaccine—they were betting their entire future on 32 black, and the Americans were able to develop a vaccine to bail out the Asian nations’ policies of indefinite lockdown. Had the vaccine taken another 6-12 months to develop there would have been a total collapse of the economies of some of those nations, anti-lockdown riots, or they would have had to adopt Western-style policies that weren’t quite as draconian.
Respectfully, I don't think this is revisionist at all. There was absolutley an effort to buy time - not only for vaccines. Though you're right in a sense - it wasn't only to buy time for a vaccine but also to buy time to build out further hospital capacity, develop treatment options, and study the disease. The early-2020 narrative was that there was an insufficient amount of hospital beds, ventilators, and medical staff to deal with a large surge in newe patients. Asian nations experienced SARS so had fresh memory of the impacts of an infectious respiratory disease.
With the exception of China (don't get me started on that political power-grab clusterfuck) most nations here in APac handled the initial phase of COVID well. Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Singapore - all pulled up the drawbridges. When I waltzed in from Hong Kong to California, I was shocked just how little the US cared about the influx of potential cases. I was literally flying in February 2020 from Hong Kong, with recent travel history to China, and walked right into LAX with barely a questionnaire.
I'm not an epedemiologist. But it would appear to me that many of the APac precautions work. Shutting down all international travel - worked. Taiwan had no cases for months. Korea's drive-through tests worked. Masking worked.
I'm not saying there weren't eventual cases - that was inevitable. You can't regulate away a pandemic. But for sure the whole idea of precautions duirng Phase I (COVID Classic) was to flatten the curve, and this is where Asia succeded and the US did not.
Was a genius move and I applaud places like NY/CA for keeping it going for years and years. My only concern now is the lack of booster demand - wouldn’t want to see PFE taking a revenue hit
For the people who believe that lockdowns were not necessary, would the answer be let the virus spread without any concern about the lives it would ruin from either from death or ongoing physical ailments from it. There was an economic price to pay but I do not think the answer was to do nothing. The lock downs were never intended to be a permanant solution. My memory may be fuzzy, but I think the lockdowns were a stop gap measure until we had a vaccine. Another issue I have with the "freedom from lockdown view" is that people who took this view, were mostly uneducated people who do not like being told what to do. The ironic part of the anti lock down view, is that it hardly hurt any of the white collar people who participate on this website, which is almost everyone here. I would appreciate the anti lock down view here a little more if this site were comprised of hair dressers & waiters but this is not who participates on WSO. Blue collar and service industries were hurt by lockdowns but it was not permanent .
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