[svnpenn]

Europe has twice the population of the United States.

Yet despite this, United States has 4 TIMES the cases per day.

Europe can relax because they worked hard in the beginning to get everything under control. The US never did that, most states (like my home state of Texas) did a half-assed closing for 3 weeks, so the numbers never really got under control.

[cm2187]

It's not that clear that a lockdown helps. NY closed the earliest in the US but was the hardest hit nevertheless. It has now mostly reopened and cases aren't going up. Chances are we may have reached herd immunity there.

I have seen recently that serology tests in Italy have shown the same outcome for people who were locked down than essential workers who were not locked down (and mortality stats in the UK told a similar story a couple of months ago).

Also the evolution of deaths in Sweden followed the same shape and timing than all the other european countries who locked down, suggesting the peak had more to do with the natural evolution of the infection than as a result of a lockdown.

And as far as I know, the WHO does not support lockdowns.

I suppose things like how well care homes were protected probably mattered a lot more.

[rconti]

Second or third earliest, and there was early community spread in NY, when CA was locking down and NY was ignoring it for a week or two. And it's home to the densest city. And I think it's uncontroversial that CA lockdowns helped.

[enraged_camel]

>>It's not that clear that a lockdown helps. NY closed the earliest in the US but was the hardest hit nevertheless. It has now mostly reopened and cases aren't going up. Chances are we may have reached herd immunity there.

No, this is absolutely wrong, every single sentence. Lockdowns definitely help. New York was hit hardest because, despite closing the earliest, they still closed way too late. Cuomo resisted calls from his health experts for almost three weeks. By the time he gave the order, there were 5,000 daily cases reported and the virus was practically out of control.

New York doesn't have herd immunity - not even close. Majority of New Yorkers were not infected. https://patch.com/new-york/new-york-city/nyc-hasnt-built-her...

[therealdrag0]

"Majority of New Yorkers were not infected" is not enough to say they don't have herd immunity.

Wasn't there a study showing 40% of people have generic coronavirus anti-bodies from prior colds and it is believed that these help? Though the extent might not be known.

[vondur]

How is this not true? It looks like NY city's cases are basically flat since July.

[TheHypnotist]

Because we started to lock down relatively early and stayed that way for a bit.

[porknubbins]

I’ve heard the evidence is mixed for lockdown but I believe most of that evidence is very fuzzy comparing various (poor) degrees of compliance from ok to bad. Didn’t NYC peak almost exactly 2-3 weeks after the lockdown just as would have been expected? And at the extreme of everyone isolated in their apartment 24 hours a day the virus could not really spread.

[cm2187]

Same timing as Sweden who didn’t do a lockdown, and all other European countries. Not convinced it is the lockdown.

https://mobile.twitter.com/yinonw/status/1295152579941249024

[screye]

> It's not that clear that a lockdown helps

Thank you ! I am all for the lockdown. I am all for wearing masks. Contact tracing is great and d=should be done more rigorously. I am all for proven methods working well for a disease that is both more and less well-understood than we think.

However, amidst genuinely useful health policy, we also have a seriously large amount of security theater. As of this moment, any stance outside "covid is the next coming of the black death" is met with a lot of pushback.

The disease primarily kills and affects older people. We still haven't seen any age specific policy come out of any govt. Close down old age homes. Ensure social distancing at all costs. Let other things come back to normal slowly. It is near impossible for it to spread via surfaces.

WHO has claimed that truly asymptomatic patients (not pre-symptomatic, not making that distinction initially caused push back) patients rarely transmit, and another study found that about 80% of patients in the 10-30 range are asymptomatic.

From my POV, America failed with Covid due to the South, Republicans and many refusing to take basic covid precautions. Shouting at those who are already doing their bit, for not going above and beyond is not going make this any better. People need to stop with purity tests, and directing their misguided anger towards those who are already doing more than enough. This is knowing what we know from countries that have beaten covid.

[TeMPOraL]

> As of this moment, any stance outside "covid is the next coming of the black death" is met with a lot of pushback.

Probably because anything less and everyone thinks they're special enough that special health measures don't apply to them.

Not that I'm ordinarily in favor of dramatizing things, but I'm at a loss about how to handle the lot of regular people that I know personally, who aren't capable of nuance and instead will use any excuse to justify ignoring lockdown & social distancing measures. The pictures coming from Italy in March scared the shit out of everyone, but now that we don't see trucks full of bodies in the news on a regular basis, this significant fraction of the population is back to ignoring all safety measures and whining about "covid craze".

[screye]

On the contrary, I feel this exact mindset has backfired heavily.

The difference between the 'black death hysteria' and the 'invisibility' of the disease on the ground has only emboldened conspiracy theorists, republicans and idiots.

While Trump certainly made it worse, the medical community is to blame as well.

The death estimates (with or without lockdown) from the highly influential ICL study turned out to be completely bogus. The mixed messaging on masks, ventilators and spread via surfaces were all major missteps. The right wing support of Hydroxychloriquine, the disgraced study opposing it printed by respected medical and journalistic outlets and then its eventual disappearance into obscurity was another major blow to the establishment's credibility.

Breeding resentment among those abiding is never a good idea. Adding even more rules for those who aren't is even worse. The moral and practical choices are almost never the same. If the US had found a middle ground lockdown, that everyone was willing to follow, maybe it would have worked out better.

To be clear, if I was a dictator, the lockdown would have been far more severe. But, the US is the country of freedom, where neither the central or the state govts. have much power to enforce anything. They have to negotiate with the citizens,

Covid cases in the US far exceed those of nations where the lockdown requirements (at least those imposed by NE states) are far less stringent. Clearly, the severity of lockdowns was not the problem. It was the complete inability of the experts to get a vast section of the country onboard.

(It is also possible we are arguing the same thing from different points. In Boston, where I stay, I haven't seen a single person without a mask for weeks, everyone socially distances, we have readily available free testing and I getting a bit annoyed at gyms being closed in all capacities despite the per-capita rate being about as low and everyone doing their due diligence.)

[mandeepj]

> WHO does not support lockdowns.

WHO is corrupt, and has been politicized. They were also against masks at the beginning, and also said COVID does not transmit from human to human.

[FabHK]

> [WHO] said COVID does not transmit from human to human.

Can you put that canard to rest? On January 14th (when virtually nothing was known about this yet), the WHO tweeted (my highlights):

> Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus

So, note:

a) this was very early days, and the understanding was in flux.

b) the WHO didn't itself claim anything about the virus and its transmission, but it reported on a study. The WHO doesn't conduct their own studies. The WHO reports and aggregates information from the member states. Here, these were investigation reports from the Chinese authorities, and that's what they said at the time.

c) these were preliminary studies, not a final conclusion.

d) the claim wasn't that there is no transmission, but that at the time no clear evidence for it had been found.

The tweet was maybe ill-advised, and it didn't age well, but it is by no means indicative of corruption.

That is not to say that the WHO doesn't have major problems. But this tweet is not one of them.

[treeman79]

Saw the movie clue a couple months ago. It shocked me how bad WHO reputation was back then. 1985.

Professor Plum works for the WHO. —-

Miss Scarlet : I hardly think it will enhance your reputation at the U.N. Professor Plum, if it's revealed that you have been implicated not only in adultery with one of your patients, but in her death and the deaths of five other people.

Professor Plum : You don't know what kind of people they have at the U.N., I might go up in their estimation.

[showdeadtest]

I remember reading tales of the WHO’s legendary corruption from a book made of paper at a library. That was a long time ago.

[djsumdog]

It varied and we're seeing more cases in the EU coming out of the lockdown. Hell, NZ went for total elimination and they got more cases (possibly due to freight?)

When this is over, I bet the entire planet will have rates similar to Sweden. My theory is lockdowns delay the inevitable. We should protect the most at risk (95% of fatalities in the US are ages 55+), but we also need to realize there is no way to really stop a virus in circulation.

I wrote a while back about how we just need to come to accept our life expectancy is just lower now:

https://battlepenguin.com/politics/this-is-not-a-time-of-hon...

[bmcn2020]

I live in Europe now.

The reason that the "second wave" (if that's what it truly is) is coming now is because of easing of restrictions more than anything else. This is summer, and Europeans religiously go on vacation during summer.

This second rise in Covid-19 is more related to groups moving between borders, and those borders having had their restrictions lifted, than some "lockdowns don't work" conclusion. If you looked at the data for different EU nations, a few weeks after moderate lockdowns were introduced, the curve did in fact flatten and cases began to plummet. And as countries open up their borders -- and gyms have reopened where I live -- cases go up.

I was in Greece a few weeks ago, and the cases in the entire nation were pretty OK. On the island where I was, it was pretty good. But their borders with their neighbors were open -- Croatia, Albania, etc. -- and the uptick came largely from their neighbors. Now, at least last time I checked, current cases are higher than from the "first" wave.

In total - I'd say it's more a result of the vacation mindset and opening of borders here in Europe that is resulting in this summer uptick than a failure of lockdown measures.

[Open-Sourcery]

More cases in one region that has gone into [alert level 3](https://covid19.govt.nz/covid-19/alert-system/alert-system-o...) and the rest of the country into level 2. With more cases currently being low double digits active cases (almost all of which are in managed isolation) with single digit new active cases per day which is dropping.

New cases were expected, and planned for. There is active investigation into how the virus got into the community, and efforts to improve the resurgence plan. New cases coming from elimination can't really be compared to "we have community spread, but the cases went down so we are going to open up again".

https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/...

[rootusrootus]

> there is no way to really stop a virus in circulation

Sure there is, a vaccine.

[djsumdog]

It takes 5 to 10 years to create a safe and effective vaccine. Look to the 1970s and Swing Flu to see an example of a failed vaccine. It is absolutely insane that anyone is seriously considering we can make a safe vaccine for this in less than a year.

Pharmaceutical companies have never made a successful vaccines for coronaviruses before. I've heard the argument, "Well we have more people working on it." If you hire nine women, you can't make a baby in a month. There is no way, no matter how much money you throw at it, to safely do 5~10 years worth of testing in less than a year.

[HPsquared]

Indeed, you'd think in HN of all places, everyone should be familiar with the concept of the "mythical man month".

[rootusrootus]

You just replied to a strawman argument made by someone you seem to agree with. Why?

[rootusrootus]

> I've heard the argument

That was a beautiful strawman, and even one of the replies your comment walked right into it.

There aren't many human coronaviruses circulating to begin with. And they're not dangerous, aside from SARS-CoV-2. Of course there aren't any vaccines for them. Got pretty close on SARS & MERS before they fizzled on their own.

> It takes 5 to 10 years to create a safe and effective vaccine

How long do you think the leading SARS-CoV-2 vaccines have been in development? Years. It's not like they were dreamed up since February.

[achenatx]

The SARS vaccine was likely successful. SARS died out and so the vaccine was never fully challenged in a pandemic. But as far as I know antibodies lasted a long time.

[djsumdog]

No they didn't. SARS1 and MERS vaccines had a ton of problems, such as Imuenopathic responses and Immune Enhancement syndrome.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3335060/

https://www.pnas.org/content/117/15/8218

[mandeepj]

> If you hire nine women, you can't make a baby in a month

Absurd argument. You can't parallelize the birth of a baby but you can do that for testing a vaccine.

[WD-42]

How? The whole point of phase 3 clinical trials is long term observation. Have you figured out how to parallelize the passing of time so that it goes by quicker?

[refurb]

What? You'd just run your phase 1 (safety) in parallel with phase 2/3 (efficacy)?

So basically dose tens of thousands of people before you even know it's safe?

[nradov]

A vaccine will be nice to have but it won't be sufficient to eradicate the virus. Some people won't be vaccinated. No vaccine is 100% effective. And there are animal reservoirs; we obviously can't vaccinate wild animals.

[rootusrootus]

We don't get 100% vaccination on any disease, but we have eradicated a few and all but eradicated a bunch. We just need something approximating herd immunity levels. Those who want vaccinations will get them, the rest can slowly add to the total until society as a whole is no longer worried about coronavirus.

[harambae]

>Some people won't be vaccinated.

Not just some, but surveys show something like 40% of Americans say they won't take it

[rootusrootus]

If we really get that level of abstention, then maybe it would be a good idea after all to give people who test positive for antibodies some kind of way to prove it.

[thelastname]

I don't know but perhaps recent social unrest could have something to do with that?

Europe is getting tired right now, and I'm not talking about economies but about people. You can't lock people for months and expect them to to obey indefinitely. It's unsustainable. It's more reasonable to apply some proportional restrictions than to lock everything down. Eg. limit users of a gym and require disinfection. That's how a legal state should work: effective and proportional restrictions, rest is a human right.

[roywiggins]

NYC saw substantial social unrest and didn't see any COVID spikes; marches and demonstrations have extended for months and the test positivity rate remains low.

I believe it's the decision not to reopen indoor dining and bars, and to mandate masks, that saved NYC the resurgence that the rest of the country has seen. You absolutely can control COVID even during the current period of social unrest; the US largely chose not to. COVID doesn't seem to like to spread that much during largely masked, outdoor protests. It loves to spread in bars and parties.

School is opening soon, so things will probably get worse, but nevertheless: NYC demonstrates that in an American context, COVID can still be controlled pretty well.

(NYC government has a lot to answer for w/r/t the initial response in March, but that's not the same issue)

[thelastname]

That would provide masks effectiveness quite well. I hope we(or our governments) all may learn on others experiences.

[ekianjo]

> Europe can relax because they worked hard in the beginning to get everything under control.

Where do you see that COVID19 is over?

> under control

A very steep second wave of infection is, to me, the opposite of "under control". Do you actually check data?

https://covid19.who.int/region/euro/country/fr

Also, just routinely mentioning:

"No country knows the total number of people infected with COVID-19. All we know is the infection status of those who have been tested."

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-testing

Also, the US tests about twice more (per thousand people) vs the rates of testing in Europe, so you should expect at least 2x more cases discovered in the US just by this mere fact.

Most of Europe also has only a "symptoms-based" testing policy, while the US also has an "asymptomic" testing policy.

[rockinghigh]

It's under control from a death perspective. Daily deaths number have been in the 0-20 range for 2+ months in France. The numbers are 100x higher in the US (500-1500/day) over the same period with 5 times the population.

[esrauch]

I'm curious about the death rates in the European countries on your WHO link; both France and Spain have clear resurgence in cases but very near zero deaths. Did they actually reduce the morbidity by 100x, or is there some other fundamental difference?

[SpicyLemonZest]

Morbidity has definitely reduced some, both because testing is now covering non-severe cases and because treatment protocols have improved.

But a major factor is that deaths have consistently been a lagging indicator for this disease, both because the progression is quite long and because the most active spreaders tend to be younger and healthier. It's likely that they'll see a matching resurgence in deaths over the next few weeks, as other areas of the world with case surges have consistently seen.

[refurb]

The most vulnerable died and now it's younger, less vulnerable people being infected and we have safety measures to protect the remaining vulnerable populations?

It will be interesting to see the death rate once this is all over. It might be much lower and the initial numbers were skewed by cases in the elderly.

[ekianjo]

> both France and Spain have clear resurgence in cases but very near zero deaths.

We are getting better at treating COVID19. We are not as clueless as 6 months ago.

[vondur]

I've been reading how the cases in France are rising enough where the government is considering a second lockdown.

[polote]

Not yet, for now they have just made the mask mandotary almost everywhere. People will not accept a second lockdown

[vondur]

I wonder how well people would respond to another lockdown. As you can see here in the US people are not taking it well. It also appears that Covid cases are spiking in Spain and Germany as well as France. https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0...

[eanzenberg]

EU has twice the population? Are you including Russia?

[svnpenn]

Do you not know how to do even the most cursory internet search?

> Population 746,419,440

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe

> Population 328,239,523

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States

[DuskStar]

EU population is 446 million, so evidently "yes, you were including Russia".

[svnpenn]

What is wrong with you? My first comment says EUROPE, not EU:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24216964

and EUROPE population is 746 million, as I already said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe

[DuskStar]

Right, including Russia.

[svnpenn]

ok? Nothing I said was wrong. I never said "EU", and I never said "EU includes Russia", and I never said "Europe doesnt include Russia".

So what is your point? Just throwing out random facts? And even if you just talk about EU, its still embarassing. EU still has 35% higher population than the US, while the US has 4 times the daily cases.

[RandomBacon]

EU = European Union

European Union ≠ Europe

[treeman79]

What’s the testing rate?

What’s the accuracy of the tests?

[polote]

> Yet despite this, United States has 4 TIMES the cases per day.

You can't compare cases

[bluedino]

Now compare individual states in the US to individual countries in Europe

[csomar]

The US is doing way more testing than most of the populous countries in the EU.

[u801e]

What's the percentage of positive test results out of all test results in the US vs most of the populous countries in Europe?

[FabHK]

Higher. US positive rate is 6.9%, Europe is mostly quite a bit lower (Austria 2.5%, Belgium 3%, France 2.4%, Germany 0.9%, Italy 1.9%, Scandinavia <1% except Sweden 3.5%, UK 0.7%) except Spain (7.2%) and Croatia (10.3%).

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-testing