It’s also unclear whether the lockdown is accomplishing anything. We have enormous economic damage, lots of boredom, no dramatic decrease of cases in most places, an unimpressive amount of progress toward herd immunity, and no meaningful increase in testing, prevention, treatment ability, or clever policies from any level of US leadership.
In other words, what have we accomplished by locking everything down? Delaying large numbers of deaths by a few months?
Extending the lockdowns until we maybe have a vaccine in 2021 does not seem like a great idea.
Has anyone done the math on whether these lockdown policies have produced objectively better outcomes over the long term?
Given that widespread vaccination does not stop infection from spreading, lockdowns seem arbitrary and pointless. Especially when you consider economic consequences, which also inflicts very real pain and suffering on the populace.
Anecdotally, it doesn't seem to have made any difference at all in the US, state by state.
Which is in itself kind of a problem. What's the endgame here - what are all these lockdowns helping to push us towards? We can't just lock down forever, it's fundamentally unsustainable and the damage compounds over time, and it doesn't look like there's a way out that doesn't involve a large death toll. Nor is there much prospect of salvation from (say) vaccination or treatment any time soon.
I think the idea is that as more data comes in it looks like this virus is not as bad as was first feared. There is no current data supporting a U.S. death toll of 2-4 million.
And a lockdown at this point doesn't save any lives, it only postpones the inevitable spread of the virus. It is not reasonable to stay in lockdown for a couple years until there is a vaccine, not for a virus that kills only 1 of 500 people.
I agree. Social distancing + vaccination is pretty much the only effective strategy so far. Lockdowns do enforce that, but they also create vast damage beyond what's needed.
It was only ever supposed to buy us time (to develop treatments, vaccines, reorganize workplaces) and avoid overwhelming the capacity of services like hospitals.
I don't think anyone credible has said that lockdowns were going to put the genie back in the bottle. It is only one component of a complete response.
They _have_ argued that a complete response might permit more economic normalcy somewhat sooner, and that appears to be bearing out.
1000s of people will likely die due to the primary and secondary effects of the lockdown (suicides, delayed health care, etc.). There's also no guarantee that "locking down" will actually prevent any deaths - it may just be delaying them until the point where things start to open back up (because I think we can all agree that does have to happen at some point someday). Everyone is hoping for treatment or a vaccine or really good testing/tracing to make a difference, but I'm not sure any of those things are guaranteed. We may just be delaying the inevitable.
All decisions at this point have significant downsides. There is no clearly correct answer. Politicians are trying to balance those concerns, and they're trying to do so with extremely limited data and awful models (due to the bad data - GIGO). I don't honestly think anyone knows what will really happen with either the virus OR the economy. It's clear they're just guessing and that's really terrifying.
The commonly stated goal of lockdowns is to slow the spread, flatten the (new cases vs time) curve, and thereby try to manage the rate of new cases so hospital resources (ICU beds, respirators, nursing staff) arn't overwhelmed.
Once (whenever that may be) the curve is shown to be flattening and hostpitals are in control, it'd be logical to see some gradual loosening of the restrictions that are currently being ramped up.
I personally doubt that loosening of restrictions, once above conditions are met, will be contingent on a proven and widely available vaccine having been developed (not least because there's no guarantee that one ever will be).
At this point it's anyone's guess how long it'll be in any given country until things appear to be more under control... Even in South Korea, who seem to have done best job in containing this, I've yet to see any estimates of how long it'll take at current rates on infection for the majority of the population to get it and/or get to "herd immunity" point.
In the US all bets are off.. it seems we were (and still are) extraordinarily slow to recognize the severity of this and take appropriate actions (severe lockdowns, widespread testing and resulting case tracking), so a reasonable expectation is that we may be following the case trajectories of the harder hit countries, with similar measures as they have in place coming to the US.
I don't understand what the endgame of a locking down a country is, unless there is some better vaccine or treatment coming.
As far as I know, COVID isn't going to stop spreading around the rest of the world. So as soon as the lockdown in a given country ends, that country will be exposed to it and face the same pandemic they would have faced in the first place. Now, that makes a lot of sense to me if they are facing it with a new tool in hand (like the vaccine), that means a lot fewer people will die than if they'd gone through it with nothing.
But if there is no better treatment coming, what does locking down for 3 months, 6 months, or a year accomplish?
So remember that’s tens of thousands of annual deaths with a vaccine. And what good have lockdowns really done? The virus seems to spread regardless. Look at all those European countries the US was compared to during the summer as an example of how to “do it right.” Not sitting so pretty right now...
Lockdowns only achieve keeping people in their homes and that's the only meaningful result that can be discerned from them. The claim that they stop disease is 1) not proven 2)not the only way 3) not the best way
That's a different argument. I'm saying that "lockdown until we have a vaccine or great treatment" might mean "lockdown until 2030". We already see heavy economic damages, civil unrest and riots after 4-8 weeks. Make that 40, 80 or 200 weeks and the world will be very different.
There is no way that people will keep complying for such a long time. I am all for mask wearing and work from home as much as possible but a lockdown for such a long time is crazy. What’s the goal? Flattening the curve or no deaths at all? We will probably see in a few months where things are going but from the stats I have seen so far the connection between lockdowns and lower death rates is not that strong. By now I would have thought that all hell would break loose in Florida but it doesn’t seem to be happening.
I think it's pretty clear the best use of a lock down is to allow time to develop and improve the infrastructure and protocols to do this properly.
But if you lack the competence or political/social will to do this properly, all you really have in the face of rising (or rising again) case numbers rolling lock downs and wait in hope of a vaccine. Or failing to manage it spectacularly, that also seems to be an option.
I’m not sure about the overall efficacy of lockdowns unless:
- The US plays along. We are likely a hotspot now, whether we go the “undertest and live in ignorance” route, or not.
- We have an effective plan for rebooting out of the lockdown. Which, until we have an effective treatment or vaccine, to me means temperature scanning in most public places imaginable, continued vigilance around disinfecting, continued limits on public gatherings, and more.
The government is in a real conundrum when it comes to relaxing the lockdown.
There are a few things we do know:
- It's impossible to keep the lockdown in place for long enough to completely eliminate the virus. Why? Because there are still essential workers out there, giving it to each other and their families.
- Because we can't eliminate the virus, the main goal to limit spread so that our existing medical resources can handle it.
- End the lockdown too early, and like a wildfire, it will spark up again in a few weeks and we're back at square one (or close to it).
- Keep the lockdown too long and the impact to the economy will only get worse, requiring massive gov't bailouts/support. The longer we're locked down, the longer it's going to take for the economy to recover.
What seems to make sense to me is, keep the lockdown in place long enough to get in front of it. Basically, enough testing so that new cases can be immediately identified and quarantined. That alone will have a big impact.
Then start to identify other essential services and slowly relax restrictions while at the same time keeping up the early identification and isolation of new cases. If things flare up, stop and get in front of it. Then continue to relax the lockdown.
The only way I can see a rapid end to the lockdown is if we either get a vaccine approved (and mass vaccination occurs) or a very effective treatment is found that takes the pressure off of medical resources.
> For how long? What if there is never a vaccine? Will we hide in our homes forever? [...] Lockdowns just can't last forever
Indeed. The purpose of the lockdown was to buy us time to build e.g. contract tracing infrastructure, massively expand testing, and develop other means to allow us to reopen safely.
Instead for the most part we've sat on our hands and done very little. Thus we're saying, well, sucks to be us, I guess we have to reopen and let people die.
It didn't have to be this way. It doesn't have to be this way. There is plenty of evidence of this from around the world.
There was never a lockdown vs no lockdown. The entire point was to slow it down temporarily until we get treatments, vaccines and hospital capacity. We won't need quarantines any more if it stays slow enough. The biggest problem last year was no treatments and no hospital beds.
Oppositions to lockdowns were never about whether they would reduce deaths or not in the short term. Anyone with a brain could understand that if people weren't in a position to breath on each other, the virus wouldnt spread as quickly.
Oppositions to lockdowns were always about tradeoffs and whether they were worth it. Its just such a boring critique.
My main question still remains, what would your plan have been if we still didnt have a vaccine? From my perspective lockdown supporters got completely bailed out by one of the greatest medical/scientific achievements in human history (developing and deploying an extremely effective vaccine within 1 year).
The only thing lockdowns do is push cases into the future.
I don't have a firm opinion on whether the lockdowns were good or bad, but: it bothers me more that no one seemed to even consider alternative options, opportunity costs, or second-and-third-order consequences.
It feels like the powers that be are playing whack-a-mole, incapable of seeing beyond the immediate problem. It doesn't bode well for a potential future (hopefully avoidable) pandemic that has far higher death rates. The Black Death, for example, is 'estimated to have killed 30% to 60% of Europe's population.'
In other words, what have we accomplished by locking everything down? Delaying large numbers of deaths by a few months?
Extending the lockdowns until we maybe have a vaccine in 2021 does not seem like a great idea.
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