[abystander]

Since they claim a quarter of patients are showing symptoms and one of those is depression - how do they separate the out the effect of the de facto criminalization of social activity, an innate human behavior ingrained in our DNA after millions of years of evolution?

You'd get significant depression in solitary confinement too.

[FiReaNG3L]

No idea why you're getting downvoted - they have no control group and as you say there's 'depression' in their symptoms they count for. I'm pretty sure 'depression' (which I'm sure they don't count as clinically depressed, but 'im feeling more depressed') went up significantly in the whole population last year.

Also PLoS one is basically not peer reviewed - they accept every paper after a short review.

[emodendroket]

That part is fine but the part where he instead diagnoses everyone with having been driven crazy by the (by implication misguided) coronavirus response is not really thoughtful in my opinion.

[_ykl9]

No idea why you're getting downvoted

Speculation: conflation of his reasonable and factual statement with the ostensibly similar far-right talking point that the cure (social distancing) is worse than the disease.

[spookthesunset]

> far-right talking point

Expressing skepticism surrounding the efficiency of social distancing, masks, "non essential business" and all these lockdowns is not a "far right" talking point. None of our response was in any playbook for this level of threat. We threw out all our pandemic planning in a fit on hysteria and panic.

To this day we cannot say for certain that lockdowns did anything at all, let alone enough to justify their social costs. Same with social distancing or even masks for that matter. The fact that all this can be considered an uncontrolled experiment on unwilling participants is not "far right" thinking.

[CarelessExpert]

> Expressing skepticism surrounding the efficiency of social distancing, masks, "non essential business" and all these lockdowns is not a "far right" talking point.

You're absolutely right. This kind of misinformation isn't limited to the far right.

> To this day we cannot say for certain that lockdowns did anything at all,

LOL, what? This is a truly astonishingly statement.

Literally every place that instituted lockdowns saw a drop in COVID transmission, and every place that reduced or eliminated lockdowns saw an increase.

This isn't even controversial. It's an application of the basic germ theory of infectious transmission.

You can't seriously be making this claim in good faith, can you?

[spookthesunset]

I am absolutely making this claim in good faith.

Where is your studies showing these restrictions worked well enough to justify their immense costs to society? They don’t exist. To date I’ve yet to see a single cost benefit analysis done for any of this. It simply wasn’t allowed to be done… you’d get shouted down by the mob.

It worries me greatly how little critical thinking has been applied to the last 17+ months. It’s appeals to authority all the way down.

Show me the proof this stuff worked… and even then we didn’t know it would work going in, which makes it incredibly ethically (and morally) challenged. The last 17 months have shown me the depths of what humanity can do when gripped with fear and hysteria… it is pretty terrifying.

[CarelessExpert]

> Where is your studies showing these restrictions worked well enough to justify their immense costs to society?

And predictably the goalposts shift.

First it was that we "cannot say for certain that lockdowns did anything at all".

Now it's that the results don't "justify their immense costs to society".

> and even then we didn’t know it would work going in,

Again: Lockdowns are a basic application of germ theory.

The only way they could not work is if infection didn't pass from human to human but was transmitted via miasma or aether.

You could absolutely make valid arguments for or against specific lockdown policy choices (i.e. capacity limits, sizes of gatherings, types of businesses affected, etc).

But lockdowns in general? There's piles of evidence that shows they're extremely effective. Heck, in my own city, we saw a massive spike brewing prior to Christmas, and once a lockdown was instituted, the numbers immediately began to fall. That pattern is repeated anywhere you care to look.

I honestly refuse to spend any time citing data for you, as I do not believe for a second that you're arguing in good faith. If you really wanted to find facts, you could easily dig them up. That you haven't done so tells me everything about your willingness to question your own beliefs.

[abystander]

I notice a lot of run-of-the-mill liberals automatically assume their opponents who aren't manifestly crazy are "devil's advocates" or not making the argument in good faith.

It seems intellectually lazy and the epitome of condescension to cast away all criticism in this way. As those opposing arguments are always beyond the pale and not worthy of thought.

The overwhelming feeling I get from this type of person: "there's no possibility I'm wrong."

[harpersealtako]

I would hope we're past the point now where we can write off legitimate complaints or concerns about the overall direction of COVID mitigation strategies implemented in most developed countries. Many well-intentioned anti-misinformation campaigns have been proven misguided and potentially harmful (for example, the debacle around the lab-leak theory, and the subsequent censorship and ostracization of anybody who dared suggest it), so we should be careful when we accuse others of arguing in bad faith, lest we repeat our past mistakes.

This isn't 2020 anymore, we should be able to take a sober look at what likely worked (universal mask-wearing, vaccines, border closures, quick contract tracing) and what may not have worked (closing otherwise safe outdoor spaces, obsessive surface cleaning, the "6-foot-rule") without judgement now.

[IfOnlyYouKnew]

> we cannot say for certain that lockdowns did anything at all

This level of misinformation is no longer rational. You question that not meeting others in person can have an effect? It’s getting close to denying germ theory. Maybe it’s all bad vapors?

Sure, we can’t exactly specify the effect of different measures. But there’s plenty of evidence that they work, collectively. And the only method to come up for evidence regarding measures of this nature is to try them. You can’t do a lockdown study in a lab.

As to negative effects, we know that GDP recovers fast and suicide rates actually didn’t rise, despite constant assertions od the opposite.

[CarelessExpert]

Because the entire comment is clearly phrased to be antagonistic? "de facto criminalization of social activity"? Are they trying to troll people? Because that's how you troll people.

[msamwald]

> Also PLoS one is basically not peer reviewed - they accept every paper after a short review.

That is absolutely not true, PLOS ONE has proper peer-review, their review guidelines just focus on technical soundness and de-emphasize subjective noteworthiness.

(As a personal anecdote, I managed to get one of my papers rejected from PLOS ONE once...)

[TuringNYC]

I was about to say this also -- I haven't been to the gym for over a year and haven't done any real weight training or group exercise for this whole time in lockdown. It would be hard for me to separate the effect of that from long COVID, curious how the study is controlling for this factor.

[deregulateMed]

I want to ask the commenters in this thread who have long covid if they are overweight/obese or have a medical condition. But... I don't want to get flagged.

[ljf]

Hey can only talk for my wife (got covid late March 2020)

40yo, not over weight, was at the gym 4 days a week, could squat and deadlift 50kg, very active life.

Only 'pre existing' was coeliac disease and very very mild asthma. Like barely ever took a blue inhaler but had one in the house. Other that That fit and healthy and very active.

Inital covid as bad, but after 2 weeks was nearly back to normal, then breathing got worse, heart rate all over the place, numbness, brain fog etc. Only just getting back to normal now but still not ready for exercise yet.

[sethammons]

all the same on my end and for my wife. My wife was training for crossfit regional games a couple years ago, and I wasn't a slouch myself. We also have sleeping issues, heart rate all over, numbness, brain fog. Exercise is such a struggle. We both tested negative for covid antibodies. :shrug:

[caturopath]

> how do they separate the out the effect of the de facto criminalization of social activity, an innate human behavior ingrained in our DNA after millions of years of evolution?

Presumably you can tease that out to some degree by comparing to folks who didn't have COVID.