I think it’s worth mentioning that COVID wasn’t what caused the world to shut down, and vaccines weren’t what caused the world to open up. These were both incredibly authoritarian policy choices by governments.
Sweden has twice the death rate as its closest neighbors (both geographically and culturally), Norway and Denmark. Note that the differences in policy between Sweden and other European countries were largest early on in the pandemic, and the differences in Sweden's death rate then were even more extreme.
In a broader international comparison, Sweden (and Europe generally) did not fare well. Countries that took a zero-CoVID approach, such as China, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam and Singapore ended up with much lower death rates, because most of them vaccinated their populations before allowing the virus to spread.
I highly recommend everyone who wonders why people do this to read the 'Conspiracy Theory Handbook'. Unlike what the title suggests, it is a very brief primer into the psychological research done by Cook and others on conspiracy thinking, mostly from the perspective of climate science denial: https://www.climatechangecommunication.org/handbook/the-cons...
One of the key traits of conspiracy thinking is immunity-to-evidence:
"Conspiracy theories are inherently self-healing, evidence that counters a theory is
re-interpreted as originating from the conspiracy. This reflects the belief that the
stronger the evidence against a conspiracy (e.g., the FBI exonerating a politician from
allegations of misusing a personal email server), the more the conspirators must want
people to believe their version of events (e.g., the FBI was part of the conspiracy to
protect that politician)"
I suppose so, if you look at the exacerbation of economic inequality, starvation (+15 million worldwide), and deaths of despair caused by the lockdowns and associated interventions. Seemingly no one minds that.
Most discussions around depopulation get bogged down in emotional or ethical arguments. To clarify, ethical considerations aren't distractions; they drive the pragmatic actions of all parties involved. It's even feasible to consider the most ethical—perhaps fully democratic—means of implementing such plans. However, it's worth noting there's a historical tolerance limit beyond which future generations may not be kind to the architects of such initiatives.
The real crux isn't whether some advocate for lower populations—clearly, many do—but the operational aspect: who executes, under what authority, and how? For instance, if a group of biologists and engineers aim to reduce Earth's population to 4 billion by 2400, the implications—like fewer children and potential space colonization—are vastly different than a group of anthropological philosophers striving for the same population count by 2033, which could necessitate more drastic measures.
These logistical issues, whether it's stealth tactics versus open methods or the necessity of opportunistic partnerships, remain conspicuously underexplored.
Governments could have avoided shutting down if they had been willing to accept much larger numbers of deaths. In the US, that would have meant somewhere around a million more deaths.
>Using an event study approach and data from 43 countries and all U.S. states, we measure changes in excess deaths following the implementation of COVID-19 shelter-in-place (SIP) policies. We do not find that countries or U.S. states that implemented SIP policies earlier had lower excess deaths. We do not observe differences in excess deaths before and after the implementation of SIP policies, even when accounting for pre-SIP COVID-19 death rates.
Italian and New York hospitals were overwhelmed because a) both places put sick elderly into old age homes. (42% of US COVID19 deaths in 2020 occurred in old age homes!) b) Like elsewhere early on, doctors put everyone serious onto ventilators in a mistaken belief that they should treat patients like they do ARDS cases based on blood oxygen levels. This damaged healthy lung sacs and caused long-term dependence on mechanical respiration that doctors found almost impossible to wean patients from, and other side effects like deep vein thrombosis; Nick Cordero is an example. (This article from April 2020 <https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/08/doctors-say-ventilators-...> was completely vindicated in retrospect.) Neither happened after the first few months.
And no, none of those field hospitals built in parking lots and stadiums everywhere were used, either. In Wales, for example, Millennium Stadium was converted into a temporary field hospital with 300 beds and capacity to expand to 2000 beds. It was such a big deal that a public contest was held to name it Dragon's Heart Hospital <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon%27s_Heart_Hospital>. However, said hospital never had more than 46 patients at one time, and was closed in six weeks for lack of use!
Even in NYC, which really did see overloaded hospitals briefly in March-April 2020, USNS Comfort treated a total of 179 patients. USNS Mercy treated a total of 77 patients in LA.
You left out (c) cases were rising exponentially, so even if doctors could have handled X number of patients, they would become overwhelmed a few days later when that turned into 2X. Virtually no one in the population had immunity to SARS-CoV-2, so the only way to stop the exponential rise was a dramatic reduction in face-to-face contact between people. That could occur through spontaneous change in public behavior (e.g., everyone avoiding public places as much as possible, or everyone wearing then-unavailable N95 masks in public), from public policy ("lockdowns"), or from both. But continuing on as normal would have led to hospitals being overwhelmed, no matter how efficiently they were run and how skillfully they treated the patients.
To your point (a), old-age homes should have been much better protected, but it's virtually impossible to shield them off when the virus is raging outside. The most effective way to protect the elderly would be to reduce transmission of the virus in society as a whole.
To your point (b), that's what happens in a pandemic. There's a completely new disease, and doctors don't know how to treat it effectively. Everyone is trying to do what they can, based on experience with treating other diseases. You can't base public health policy around a belief that doctors will instantly know the correct way of treating a pandemic disease. You have to take dramatic measures to reduce transmission in a situation like New York faced in early 2020.
This is a garbage-in, garbage-out analysis, akin to saying, "We analyzed 100 cities, and found that those with levies were more prone to flooding. Thus, we conclude that levies offer no protection against flooding." We know mechanistically why levies work: they block water. We know mechanistically why lockdowns work: they reduce transmission. Less transmission means fewer infections means fewer deaths.
You can see this most clearly in the zero-CoVID countries, which had dramatically lower death rates during the pandemic. Taiwan and China had virtually zero deaths for much of the pandemic, because they traced literally every infection chain and capped it off. They reopened after vaccinating most of their populations, which means that most people in those countries had a primed immune system when they first got infected. As we know from numerous studies, that dramatically reduces mortality.
If governments cared about dead people they would regulate the fast food and processed food industry. McDonald’s kills more people than covid ever could.
reply