Well if Rt is ~3 I guess we're going to have another ride in Spain. I don't think this country can handle another lockdown.
In my region people is pretty sensible about mask use etc. We relaxed a bit, but people still take care. I've been to Madrid and Barcelona for work and people behaves like this never happened.
I hope I get a chance to a boost shot, because I know a couple of dudes that got covid and the side effects are pretty ugly. I'd rather be in my bed with fever for a couple of days.
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.
> Given that widespread vaccination does not stop infection from spreading, lockdowns seem arbitrary and pointless.
Only because they're partial and temporary. NZ and Australia went into a full borders closed lockdown and were back in stadiums with tens of thousands while the epidemic was in full swing in the rest of the world.
I mean, I get that it's a morally difficult one because freedoms and rights and shit, but if the world went into lockdown for a month when this thing first came out, we wouldn't be in this situation.
The 'lockdowns' we get now are compromises; in my own country, their aim is to keep the economy going and kids going to school, even if workplaces and schools are probably the biggest spreaders. I say probably, because they announce new measures without providing evidence that the actions they take are the most effective at stopping the spread. Things like closing shops at 5; where are the facts that open shops after 5 are the biggest problem?
Excess mortality in the USA and the EU in 2020 were ~470k and ~580k deaths.
The population of the USA and the EU in Jan 2020 was ~329 and ~447 million.
The excess mortality in the USA and the EU in 2020 was ~143 vs ~129 excess deaths per 100.000 inhabitants.
The USA had ~10% more excess deaths per capita than the EU.
People living in the EU during 2020 had statistically a significantly better chance of not dying of COVID than people living in the USA, even though COVID hit the EU first, which gave the USA longer time to prepare.
This doesn't really answer your question, because the answer is very personal. Some people were really scared and preferred to trade some freedom for more safety. And well we have many examples of vocal famous people that traded off safety for freedom, and died of COVID. These people would have probably been better off had they lived in the EU, even if they would have been breaking the law and paying fines.
There was no pan-Euro response nor was there a pan-American response, so these groupings are arbitrary. Unless you have an objective "score" that Euro lockdowns and policies on average went further than American lockdown policies, these numbers are meaningless.
You could easily justify the differences as deriving from Europe having an objectively healthier population and better healthcare systems than the US.
The EU didn’t act as one entity in the epidemic/lockdown/furlough policies. In particular Eastern European countries went with US-like policies (and less vaccine provision and even more anti accents) and and suffered more than the US.
The Nordics, France and German-speaking countries have half the death rate of the US or less, in some cases even negative excess deaths.
Well, I'd say the biggest difference was that in the EU, many countries would give you 80% unemployment to stay home for many months.
In the US, you'd get a few thousand $, many months later. So yeah, you might have had a similar chance to catch COVID but your livelihood and financial security were much more secure in Europe.
Policy-wise w/r/t COVID, EU and US are nowhere near NZ, Tiawan or China. Now that's containment taken seriously and it shows.
Many in the US made significantly more on the combination of enhanced unemployment and stimulus checks than they had made working. Greater than 100% previous wage.
Well, it helped to aleviate the collapse of hospitals here. They were late so hospitals collapsed anyway, but could have been worse.
It's just a question of timing. Late for Madrid, nicely timed for my city.
Another new problem I see is that healthcare personnel is burnt-out. Not only because of the insane work-hours and all the jazz, they feel mistreated by politicians and society in general, and I have doubts that if they get called for a new emergency they'll go contribute in the same numbers.
My problem is that these restrictions only apply to the common folk, political and business elites seem to have a pass…
Even golden boy Trudeau who can do no wrong was spotted in Ottawa breaking newly announced restrictions like goddamn.
My understanding is that a lockdown is only supposed to slow the spread and alleviate pressure on health services so that they are not overwhelmed. We saw what happens when they are overwhelmed in India - Many more people die that could have been saved.
So to answer your question, you would have to define 'objectively better'. Are you referring to economic outcomes, number of deaths or some other measurement?
You still can't compare those trends, because many of those countries have relaxed their lockdown measures after reaching a certain level of vaccination. When looking at hospitalization rates instead of only case rates, it seems that the countries with high levels of vaccination are seeing a much lower percentage of cases ending up in hospital.
Taking for example the NL numbers: we have twice as many cases/day as during last winter's peak, but only half as many deaths/day. Naively, that suggests that the vaccines reduce case mortality by 75%. But that data is also hopelessly incomplete: we recently reinstated some of our lockdown measures, so the number of infections/day is stabilizing, but fatalities/day will probably keep rising for another week.
Look at the covid stats for the UK. Do you see a difference?
If you choose not to spend 1 minute to Google it, that's your prerogative. I'm not going to cite my comment like a research paper when the verification is a Google search away.
If you disagree with the stats, feel fee to provide evidence that refutes it. That would enhance the conversation.
Are you serious? Most of Europe at least is at numbers that would've created herd immunity with the alpha variant (had the vaccine actually stopped transmission). I'd say that's pretty widespread.
Vaccination rates in the US have been abysmal by developed world status, precisely because so many of you don't think vaccination works. It does work to dramatically slow spreading, but only if enough people take it up.
No it actually does not really stop spread to any significant degree (which is evident just by looking around what's going on everywhere). It just makes the symptoms milder.
I don't understand how you came to that conclusion based on the articles you linked.
The first study finds that "The SAR [secondary attack rate] in household contacts exposed to the delta variant was 25% (95% CI 18–33) for fully vaccinated individuals compared with 38% (24–53) in unvaccinated individuals" and "Fully vaccinated individuals with delta variant infection had a faster (posterior probability >0·84) mean rate of viral load decline (0·95 log10 copies per mL per day) than did unvaccinated individuals with pre-alpha (0·69), alpha (0·82), or delta (0·79) variant infections." (The study did not determine a meaningful impact on peak viral load and on the SAR in households when the index case was vaccinated.)
The second link is a letter that reiterates the fact that vaccinated index cases are just as likely to infect other household members and concludes with "It appears to be grossly negligent to ignore the vaccinated population as a possible and relevant source of transmission when deciding about public health control measures", which makes sense, but does not mean spread
When you say "which is evident just by looking around what's going on everywhere", it's important to point out that we're now dealing with a variant that is significantly more transmissible than previous ones, so we can't compare the numbers like-for-like.
But the virus is endemic and vaccines will not stop it from being caught by everybody at some point.
You can't lockdown the virus away. You can't stop the spread by canceling flights either. Just seems like awful policymaking driven by virtue signaling.
We can't stop it dead, but we can dramatically reduce the number of critical illnesses and deaths, and have done so in many countries. I'm a Brit and our lockdown and vaccination policy has been extremely effective. We've largely lived normal lives since the summer, with low case rates and very low mortality thanks to strong vaccine uptake and popular support for protective measures. If we need to lock down again, we will because we have experienced the benefits that this strategy has produced. I'm having my booster shot on Saturday.
I fully expect to contract the virus at some point, and that's fine. I'm well protected by vaccination and the rate of propagation in the country is moderate enough that the hospitals aren't being overwhelmed by huge surges in infections and deaths any more.
Slowing down and limiting the impact of the virus doesn't stop it, correct, but it does massively reduce the damage it causes. That is very much worth doing, as the experience here in the UK clearly shows.
The UK has roughly equivalent covid deaths per capita as the USA, where vast parts of the country never locked down and still by and large don't wear masks or get vaccinated.
Did the stricter lockdowns make a difference in the end?
> But the virus is endemic and vaccines will not stop it from being caught by everybody at some point.
Plenty of people live their whole lives without catching smallpox or polio. We have/can develop effective vaccines for COVID. Why should it be different?
No people have gone through their life without catching the cold and very few without catching the flu at least once, despite having flu vaccines for a few decades now.
Not all viruses are the same, and sarscov2 is much more like cold/flu than polio.
Specifically, saracov2 has reservoirs in animals. Unless you had an effective vaccine that also works for cats, dogs, deer etc and the ability to actually deploy it (think wild deer all over the US), it’s here to stay.
Those diseases actually had high mortality rates, unlike covid.
There's something called proportionate response. Personally I think policymakers should consider the actual pros and cons and the weight of them, rather than virtue signal as if everybody can be saved from every ailment, and acting as if second order effects don't exist.
We also could have locked down every winter to save people from dying due to flu. Why do you think we didn't do that before, when it could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives? Why don't we wear masks 24/7 to protect from flu?
Not an official study but just an observation - its very possible to avoid lockdowns so far, by implementing true vaccine passports. Israel did that without any shutdowns during the 4th wave. Basically banning non-vaccinated people from most public areas
and by true, that means something you can actually validate isn't fake, while checking for ID at the same time. And also not allowing in un-vaccinated children because of fairness. Deadly viruses do not care about fairness
At least here in NY, USA - I have my vaccine passport checked very often, but verified with my ID about 10% of the time. So that wouldn't have the same effect
> Not an official study but just an observation - its very possible to avoid lockdowns so far, by implementing true vaccine passports. Israel did that without any shutdowns during the 4th wave. Basically banning non-vaccinated people from most public areas
You are just pushing the work to be done by low-level employees at this point. Yes, it can work for a while but go talk to anyone who works in public event spaces (theaters, bars, cinemas, etc.) in, for example, Germany and you will see how much fatigue this causes.
And what happens when people get fatigued due to the extra workload created by forcing these measures to be taken by small businesses? People get sloppy, they get tired of a procedure that usually would take 2 minutes taking 15, chipping time away from other duties they are responsible for (and supervised). Over time they stop doing the checks properly and just like with other COVID measures, becomes increasingly ineffective.
I only had this realisation after chatting with some friends of friends in Berlin working in hospitality (hotels, bars, etc.) and events, almost every single one of them were exhausted from having to perform the extra checks on every customer, every shift, every play, every table they sit. They were trying really hard to not get sloppy because they actually care about the people, but it was clear how it was affecting them. It didn't look as a sustainable measure against COVID after 2 years of a pandemic.
That was also the fear I read voiced by experts during the first 6 months of the pandemic: people will get tired of the measures, when they get tired and don't follow them anymore it gets much worse. How to balance that is exactly all this political game going on, there is no simple solution when we talk about population levels of a nation.
What's going on in Australia, you mean the international travel restrictions?
One of the things I see "going on in Australia". Australia has had around 8 covid deaths per 100K population. Compared to, say, the United States with 237 covid deaths per 100K population. I see that and still think it's about a virus, yup.
In general over the past two years as a whole, people in Australia have lived with fewer restrictions or changes to everyday life than here in the US, with an order of magnitude fewer deaths. I still think it's about a virus, yup.
(I do not necessarily endorse international travel restrictions, including the ones the USA is enforcing, which seem to be pretty fruitless, and in some cases stricter than Australia's. I think they are mistaken. But it's about a virus, yup. Among other things, certainly US general xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment are involved in ours too. I too worry that we are imposing controls we will never see the end of, including related to border-crossing, which suits the agenda of some just fine. I'm sure it's about more than one thing in Australia too. Human things usually are. But it's about a virus, yup.).
Sweden did a nationwide study, it didn't end well.[1] Several of the bad variants also originated from countries which did not participate in full lockdown (India, Brazil).
Edit: if Omicron becomes a second 2020, I'd pay close attention to how Sweden reacts, given their recent experiences.
Sweden's numbers are really good all things considered [1]
This defies intuition, we would expect a "no restrictions" policy to result in significantly worse outcomes. Maybe the take away is that a healthier population and a better healthcare system is a more significant factor than restrictions and mandates?
Sweden’s death rate is worse than its neighbours but way better than e.g. Belgium and Britain that did lock down.
It’s also significantly better (x2-x4) than Israel by every excess death measure, where Israel locked down super seriously and vaccinated super quickly.
SA is not known to be the origin of the variant, it is merely the first country that sequenced it. It is definitely a fertile ground for mutations, though.
The graph showing Omicron outcompeting Delta is, I think, actually good news. The worse condition would be if they don't even compete, i.e. Omicron was so different that having either Delta or Omicron wouldn't make you immune from the other. The pretty abrupt decline in Delta as Omicron ramps up, suggests pretty strongly that they do compete.
I think this one might be The One. Everyone will be immune soon, perhaps, one way or the other. But if Omicron and Delta compete, then it seems plausible that the existing vaccines would at least help a bit with the severity of symptoms.
Yeah, but only if it's milder than Delta, of course. This was my initial hope: if the virus mutates so quickly, it could mutate itself out of existence after a while by becoming very contagious but as strong as a common cold.
Of course, once this happens, people will forget it ever happened and ignore the next warning signals.
The other side of that is that, given the long time COVID takes to kill someone and the amount of time they are infectious before that, it doesn't have much of a reason to become less deadly. Sure, it could mutate by chance to become more benign, but if it's communicable for twoish weeks, including while asymptomatic, then stops being communicable, and then kills the host what does it matter evolutionarily speaking that the host died? I don't think there's any pressure on COVID to become less deadly.
You are misreading the graph. The y axis is a percentage of total infections, not absolute number of infections. You can't tell from it whether the number of Delta infections is down, steady, or even up.
I don't see how a mutation, no matter what, being more infectious is good news. The fact it (and Delta for that matter) was allowed to mutate in the first place is already pretty telling that the approach used to stem the tide was not effective.
She, as a family doctor, was fast to alert from the front lines. But she is not an infectious disease specialist.
The first doctors seeing HIV cases in California without knowing what it was, yet alerting the medical community, were not the same people who brought us the current medication that controls it
Her position on the front lines is very important. But the decision on how dangerous the variant is should be given to those who specialize in just that (and would probably suck at diagnosing you with a stomach ulcer)
That's because the news media does not make money on rational and level headed takes, and the people in power do not maintain power with rational and level headed takes.
Is the assumption that those in positions of power in various governments are just watching the news, so that's why they chose to take more drastic actions with this one, even though Delta raised similar flags with the media but much less action was taken?
i don't have any domain knowledge so i cannot build an opinion on the matter, but the fact that they discovered it doesn't give them more authority on the topic then everyone else.
most researchers i've heard on the topic only said "we will have to pay close attention to it", which sounds pretty reasonable from my uneducated perspective.
The South African scientists I have read saying "over-reacting" also agree with what you summarize as most researchers saying: "we will have to pay attention to it".
They say we are over-reacting because many places are doing more than paying attention to it, making policy decisions and instituting additional restrictions based on unproven fears about it, not just paying attention to it.
The South African scientists who discovered it don't have more authority on the topic than everyone else, but they have as much or more than many. They have more than, say, me. They probably have as much as most other scientists in the field, since they're on the ground with access to evidence, and for longer than anyone else.
Believing there's an option to do nothing until more data is available is a luxurious fallacy.
By then it's too late. Obviously.
That's the problem with exponential growth. Not much seems to happen until suddenly it all happens at once, and the only chance to prevent that was a few weeks ago.
I don't understand your theory of when it's appropriate to impose restrictions before you have enough data to know they are useful or necessary.
Is your suggestion, what, to impose the strictest restrictions possible everywhere, forever, just in case, because by the time we know it's really necessary it's too late, so we should always do it without knowing it's necessary?
Like, what do you think should trigger restrictions? Just finding a variant? Should all the variants Alpha through Mu have triggered global worldwide lockdown, because if they had turned out more dangerous than they did, by the time we had found that out it would have been too late? Basically we should lock down until there are no more variants? (Will that ever happen?)
That's not how epidemiology or even science works. There are so many variables at play that a response in one region might not make sense in another region, and the same goes for the virus's behavior.
I corrected it to they, sorry for using a gendered pronoun.
It sometimes slips my mind, as I never really thought about "he" being male in this kind of context. I will pay more attention to it.
In my region people is pretty sensible about mask use etc. We relaxed a bit, but people still take care. I've been to Madrid and Barcelona for work and people behaves like this never happened.
I hope I get a chance to a boost shot, because I know a couple of dudes that got covid and the side effects are pretty ugly. I'd rather be in my bed with fever for a couple of days.