[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.