Ireland had some of the best rates in europe until we can out of lockdown. Then we had the worst infection rate per million in the world. We're in lockdown again and cases have plummeted.
California no longer under lockdown - people freak out
- Thread starter CriticalGaming
- Start date
Just to be clear I can understand someone arguing that the costs outweigh the benefits of a lockdown, I disagree but it is a genuine point that a lockdown can have a lot of negative impact. But to argue that a lockdown doesn't work? It's a virus transmitted from person to person... If you don't interact with people or interact with fewer people then obviously it will reduce the spread of the virus. I mean surely a toddler can grasp that? Whether or not a lockdown works is down to adherence and enforcement.
Could it be that the cases dropped only becauae people werent out getting tested?
Because if everyome was locked down and the cases vanished yet somehow cases come right back the moment lockdown ended.....then who was still sick after all of that? Where did the virus come back from?
Unless sick people came in from traveling. But in that case again you locked back down and they went away again. Are you just supposed to be locked down forever? What happens in 6 months when you open back up and suddenly one random person gets it again? Is the solution to go right back into lock down the moment someone in the country coughs?
Once vaccines are readily available, that won't be a problem.
Some place have done that and it's working for them.
He never said the virus vanished. He said the numbers plummeted. Considering it's a very infectious virus it doesn't taken many infected to spread the virus quickly if nobody cares about the basic distancing/mask/hygiene rules.
And considering how many pacific countries are living (quasi) normal lives with little to no cases because of how quickly they locked down "the moment someone coughs" yes maybe we should. That + very strict border rules are the best way to ensure we can live normal lives without people dying needlessly.
I work in souvenirs. Travel is my business and did the most business ever in places like, Yellowstone, wyoming, montana, south dakota, utah, and Tennessee.
Not saying those states didnt have cases because everyone did. But they didnt have lockdowns and still kspt open to travel and on top of that managed to not get swarmed with cases and the need for shutdowns. Basically they did everything that you werent supposed to and yet...got through this okay-ish.
Again california and new york has some of the toughest shutdowns in the country, yet managed to be the most fucked states. How come? Florida had fucking spring breakers and one of the oldest populations in the country, by all metrics of covid everyone in Florida should be dead, but nope they are open and mostly fine.
And when i say "ok" and "fine" i obviously dont mean that they didnt have covid at all, because the whole world got it. What i mean is the clear contrast between states.
Unless of course the numbers are all bullshit. We know there have been false deaths reported. And my and my grandfather's personal experience with hospitals this year seem to suggest that reports of "overwhelming cases" are highly highly exaggerated.
A lot of things about this pandemic smell funny and dont add up. Not saying it isnt a problem, but i am saying that our methods for dealing with it worldwide have been just as harmful.
So the lockdown didnt work. Because if you open up while people are still sick and then everyone got sick again, you locked down for no reason.
Look i think if you really wanted to lockdown, then you should have shut down EVERYTHING. every single possible excuse for leaving the house except hospitals and grocery stores.
No fast food places, no 7-11's. Not even gas stations, you dont need gas you aint supposed to go anywhere. No airports no travel in or out. Nothing!
Do a full fucking lockdown for 21 days, let the virus run out of everyones system and boom problem solved.
But no every lockdown was halfassed and useless.
I have an idea. Lets do an extreme lockdown and have ambulances drive door to door to give everyone the vaccine over the course of a couple months. Think that would solve the problem?
Also what places have done lockdowns that are now covid free?
Couldn't agree more. Although gas stations are still needed for essential workers. The half assed lockdowns imposed in the US or Europe have been disastrous on the long term as they neither got us rid of the virus nor gave us our lives back. Short lived real lockdowns would have been better.
Pointless in countries with open borders. In the Netherlands the virus was all but gone in July with partial lockdowns but they kept the airports open in summer. People returned from vacation and the virus flared back up in september.
When a method doesn't work it isn't like ''let's enforce it more strictly, then it will work''. There are other contributing factors involved. That New Zealand has got it under control is in no small part because it is surrounded by nothing but ocean.
It's all a matter of willpower. Real effective lockdowns comes with strong border checks. If New Zealand decided to accept everyone into the country without negative PCR tests and/or mandatory quarantines it would also just be a matter of days before it's back into the country.
Europe is small and countries are actually comparable to Chinese provinces, which where cut off from others when Covid flared up in one. You could apply the same to EU countries.
It has to do with people's voluntary cooperation. When the virus was still 'new' people were more afraid and respected the basic preventative measures more. You can't compensate for this with increasingly harsher measures. At best it doesn't help and at worst it divides the population or turns into protests or rioting,
The Chinese population is already under surveillance 24/7. Even if you would want the same in the west, you can't get a population docile in a matter of months. Unless you think the coronavirus warrants the introduction of a police state, I'd say this isn't effective strategy either.
I agree on the border checks. That is definitely a major, missed opportunity.
I would agree now is too late. People are both too used and tired of the virus. At the same time with the vaccines rolling out I'm not sure how much is left to gain.
It's true western societies are too individualistic and lack the respect towards the authority many Asian countries have but I believe that we're also smart enough to follow rules when people are aware of the gravity of the situation (which needs to be communicated very strongly). There will always be people who don't and for them you implement (very) tough but fair punishments/fines. But off course that will all remain a hypothetical until the next pandemic because as mentioned above, now it's too late.
This is true, but this is also false.
Not only would real lockdowns have been more beneficial, the Truth would have needed to be shared to let the American Public know that this is a real threat.
If you see the American President saying it's not a big deal, then hell, his followers are not going to take it as a big deal.
Half Assed Lockdowns were imposed simply because there was a push back by the American Public due to misinformation. There was a time for a large scare, short lived lockdown. It wasn't implemented even though the government knew the risks and gambled on American Bravado.
The damage is here. But like catching a cancer diagnosis in the third stage, you don't just shrug your shoulders and think that the damage is already done. You attempt to prolong life as long as you can.
...So, I live in Montana. Montana's lockdown worked pretty great for everybody outside of Yellowstone primarily because it restricted travel of outsiders into the state. Don't have to worry about a virus if nobody with the virus comes by.
Then our democratic governor started running for the Senate and we went to the same half-assed lockdowns y'all did and would you look at that, we're worse that California per capita:
U.S. states with the highest COVID rates 2023 | Statista
As of Mar. 2023, two U.S. states had COVID rates higher than 42 cases per 100 population. Maryland had the lowest rate of cases.
www.statista.com
Shocking. Who could've guessed.
Unless something was actually done with that time. Preparing the healthcare system; developing a functioning test-&-trace system, etc.
Of course, in the US & UK, very little was done with the time. They merely did a too-late, too-little lockdown, and then when the numbers looked a bit better, opened up again.
To be fair, the UK did do some things in that time. The government gave a lot of money to their friends, for example.
This is what happening everywhere basically. The lockdowns were never about safety of public health. They were excuses for politicians to flex their power while doing whatever they want. Thus the countless examples of them breaking their own rules constantly.
You can lockdown sooner or later, but if you choose later a load more people get sick and die. You'll probably have about the same amount of lockdown either way, it's just a choice of whether you want 10,000 dead or 40,000 dead, or 100,000 dead and your hospitals fucked so people die of lots of other things as well.
What perhaps the anti-lockdown brigade don't realise is the economy takes a beating either way. People stop doing stuff because they are anxious and economic activity slows down. Sick people don't work and decrease economic activity, and dead people cause economic losses, even retireees. Maybe the costs are spread differently throughout the economy with lockdown or mass infection, but we'd be haemmorhaging economic activity either way. The decision for the government is whether it wants to take an economic hit with 10,000 dead, or an economic hit with 40,000 dead. I struggle to understand why the latter is better.
Hostility to lockdown is many things. At a certain level, it's just annoyance at inconvience to oneself married with fundamental disinterest in other people dying, because "I'm all right, Jack". To some degree it's a manifestation of general fear and hatred of gubmint (one cannot help but note that the strongest anti-lockdown viwes come from those political quarters). At some level it's just the eternal psychological need for humans to impose some sort of order on a confusing and random world by acting like all the shit they can't control has a reason. Because the idea that stuff is unpredictable, amoral, unstoppable, that we are all just specks of dust blown around in a cosmic breeze, is too damn uncomfortable to process. So, when it's bad, find someone to blame: a scapegoat, a vessel to fill with the frustration and feelings of injustice, and then beat like a pinata.