[spaniard89277]

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.

[adam_arthur]

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.

[Cthulhu_]

> 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?

[volta83]

Good question.

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.

[disambiguation]

This is really dumb.

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.

[volta83]

I just showed the data, and summarized that according to the data, people in the EU had better chances.

I never claimed that this data is the result of COVID policies.

This is something you made up, and then proceeded to debunk, which is essentially the definition of a strawman.

Please stop building strawmans and putting words in people's mouth. It's unpolite.

[disambiguation]

So some one asks about the math on the success of lockdown policies, and you take the opportunity to do the math on... something completely unrelated?

It's not clear you're making any claims at all, which begs the question why you bothered posting in the first place.

[volta83]

Its not completely unrelated.

Excess mortality is the only fact that we know for sure given that every country counts "COVID deaths" differently.

Given that there is a statistical difference, the only thing we can probably know for sure is that an individual chances were slightly better in the EU.

The difference is small, like others have mentioned, so it doesn't seem like EU policies did a lot for the whole EU.

This makes sense, since for example Germany had pretty harsh policies, but due some of its neighboring countries having pretty lax policies (e.g. Austria), some parts of Germany were extremely affected (e.g. Bavaria).

This hints that it doesn't really matter if single states have harsher policies as long as neighboring states do not, at least for states of the size of Germany.

If we look at China, which had a very cohesive policy in all its provinces, the story differs.

This hints that if cohesive policies would have been taken at EU and USA scale, the outcome might have been different.

That didn't happen, so we will never know for sure.

This doesn't answer the OP question, but if someone claims to have an answer, they are probably lying, because we don't really have facts to back that answer up.

[adam_arthur]

I wouldn't call 10% difference significantly higher... more like within the margin of error.

With such drastic policy differences you would expect to see a larger effect.

[MagnumOpus]

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.

[volta83]

The US didn't act as one entity either.

[r00fus]

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.

[adam_arthur]

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.

You can see the aggregate personal income data here: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PI

[shin_lao]

10% difference for a virus with exponential spread is a margin of error difference.

[spaniard89277]

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.

[gunfighthacksaw]

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.

[spaniard89277]

It happened here too. I guess people seeing politicians trying to hop to be the first in the line to get vaccines helped vaccination.

[sirkent]

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?

[junon]

> Given that widespread vaccination does not stop infection from spreading

There is not widespread vaccination, though. That's where your argument falls apart.

[adam_arthur]

Covid is spreading at a similar rate today in most countries as it did when it first struck and there was no vaccine at all.

Look at the trends in Italy, UK, US, for example.

I agree the vaccine helps, but there is no clear impact on reducing spread if you look at infection data in aggregate.

We've gone from 0% vaccinated, to 60-70% with no discernable dip in infection counts.

[tremon]

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.

[adam_arthur]

I never disputed that vaccines mitigate effect of the virus. It's clear that they do, which will limit hospitalizations.

I am disputing that lockdowns have led to any discernable difference in outcomes over the long run in regards to case counts.

New Zealand may be the special case where they were able to actually completely halt inbound travel. But obviously their situation doesn't generalize.

[taylodl]

Lockdowns were implemented to prevent the collapse of the medical system. Lockdowns have been repealed with the advent of vaccines. Why? Because those vaccinated who get COVID get much milder cases and don't typically require hospitalization, and for the few that do, they don't require ICU. Lockdowns weren't implemented to reduce case counts per se, they were implemented to prevent medical system collapse.

The vaccines have been instrumental in getting back to normal.

[CabSauce]

You're trying to find data to fit your pre-determined conclusion. We're dealing with different variants now, which are more contagious.

[adam_arthur]

What data to fit my conclusion? I'm referencing hard data, and the dissenters here are not.

If you disagree, use hard data to support your assertions that vaccines have noticeably reduced infection rate.

The one following the science is the one using the data, by the way. Anything else is religion.

[tremon]

You're not referencing any data at all, just handwaving at it. You're only comparing the raw infection rates without taking into account the amount of mitigating measures such as mask mandates, work-from-home orders, and closing of schools, restaurants and bars. Last year's numbers were all achieved with very stringent lockdowns and school closures; pretty much all those countries returned to classroom teaching in September of this year.

So no, you don't get to claim "hard data" on your opinion.

[junon]

Citation please.

[adam_arthur]

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.

[spurgu]

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.

[junon]

I think you misunderstand what herd immunity is.

[spurgu]

Huh? The point where R0 dips below 1?

[junon]

I'm more referring to the fact that Europe is nowhere near the low end of the vaccination percentage health officials stated was necessary to have any chance at controlling this.

[loeg]

That, and vaccination does reduce transmission in addition to disease severity.

[seafoam]

Vaccination reduces positive PCR test results in the weeks after the jab. It is not for sure that it reduces community transmission.

In the US, the CDC stopped publishing the data one would need to get answers on this in May. For some reason.

[junon]

> It is not for sure that it reduces community transmission.

Citation please, because you're challenging the entire field of immunology here.

[junon]

Yes, correct

[shin_lao]

Imagine if the conclusion is "the lockdowns were useless".

[simonh]

Widespread vaccination dramatically reduces the rate at which the virus spreads, by more than 80%. It's not a binary does/doesn't stop spreading.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02054-z

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.

[spurgu]

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.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3...

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7...

[pfg]

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.

[spurgu]

> vaccinated index cases are just as likely to infect other household members

> It appears to be grossly negligent to ignore the vaccinated population as a possible and relevant source of transmission

You're going to have to dumb it down for me as to how this doesn't refer to spread.

> we're now dealing with a variant that is significantly more transmissible

And yes, agreed. Many are still focused on data from the previous variants though, whereas the thinking will need to change.

[pfg]

> You're going to have to dumb it down for me as to how this doesn't refer to spread.

Vaccinated index cases infecting others in the same household are only one scenario, and in that particular scenario, the study found no impact on spread. The study did find that vaccinated household members were less likely to be infected (SAR 25% vs. 38%) and that vaccinated cases had a faster rate of viral load decline - both of these findings (especially the first one) also relate to spread.

(It's arguably a bit surprising that the faster rate of viral load decline did not have an impact on the SAR for vaccinated index cases - one could make a (hopefully) reasonable hypothesis that this would matter more outside of household settings and thus still have an overall impact on spread, but that's not backed by any data from this study.)

There's also a world of difference between not "ignor[ing] the vaccinated population as a possible and relevant source of transmission" and saying that it doesn't stop spread to any significant degree. It's not binary.

[simonh]

Oh, it 'just' saves your life. Oh well, if that's all...

[spurgu]

Potentially saves your life if you're in a risk group with co-morbidities yes...

Not downplaying anything here. Reducing the symptoms is great. But interesting also to not that we don't even knows why it does that:

> The reason for the efficacy of the new mRNA vaccines is not clear.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRNA_vaccine#Efficacy

[simonh]

Where do you get the idea that the vaccines only work on people who have co-morbidities? That’s certainly not the experience here I’m the UK. They seem to reduce the death and serious illness rate in otherwise healthy people just fine.

[adam_arthur]

Yes, of course.

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.

Covid is here forever, and that's life.

[simonh]

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.

[adam_arthur]

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?

[simonh]

Were demographically and geographically completely different. Our population is much denser, more like a populous US state than a sprawling continental giant. People used to compare virus control in the US to places like Singapore and New Zealand, as though their ability to control the virus has any lessons that are realistically applicable.

We were hammered early on because we are very highly connected with the rest of the world. London is very international, and Heathrow is one of the busiest airports in the world, out of proportion to our population size. We were always going to take a heavy hit.

Nevertheless as soon as vaccines became available we have had broad adoption, and ever since we've been reaping the rewards. Delta arrived here early, but by then our vaccine take up was enough that it didn't really make as much of an impact on us as it has elsewhere.

It's just amazing to me that in 2021 here on HN the fact that vaccines protect against viruses is an actual question, or in any way political.

[junon]

Seems we've already forgotten the whole point of lockdowns the first time: to prevent overloading the hospital systems.

In places where hospitals were under capacity, deaths were significantly lower. Germany is a good example of this.

Overwhelmed healthcare systems, by comparison, saw lots more deaths.

Once it escaped Wuhan the goal was no longer to contain, but to control and soften the impact.

[FourHand451]

> 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?

[beagle3]

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.

[Geezus-42]

Create an animal vaccine, give hunters dart guns and free rein to shoot as many as they can. Then see what happens.

[taylodl]

> Covid is here forever, and that's life.

Good thing we didn't take that attitude with smallpox. Or polio. We have eradicated disease. It's not like we've never done this before.

[adam_arthur]

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?

[taylodl]

Because flu doesn’t fill our ICU’s to overflowing and burn out our medical staff. The number of deaths aren’t the only metric that should concern us.

[TheOtherHobbes]

This is nonsense.

Vaccination stopped smallpox and polio. Failure at Zero Covid is the result of poor, anti-realistic policies and attitudes - like yours, for example.

It's not because it's impossible, either economically or scientifically.

[beagle3]

This is nonsense.

Vaccination did not stop measles or whooping cough, and has not even reduced their spread (only their symptoms) despite decades of availability.

Both of their vaccines are leaky - just like the Covid vaccine.

[loeg]

What? Measles is almost entirely constrained to the unvaccinated and we vaccinate babies for pertussis at 2 months.

[shmatt]

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

[beagle3]

It is possible to avoid lockdown by not imposing lockdowns. It is that simple.

It is not the vaccine passports that stopped lockdown - in fact, there is no evidence they had any effect on transmission.

[piva00]

> 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.

[michaelmior]

> At least here in NY, USA - I have my vaccine passport checked very often

Also in NY (upstate). I can recall my passport being checked only once or twice since the beginning of the pandemic. I assume you're referring to NYC?

[sjwalter]

They're only arbitrary and pointless if you believe the goal is public health.

Imagine seeing what's going on in eg Australia and still thinking this is about a virus!

[jrochkind1]

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.).

[pfisch]

Pretty sure it is about the virus and not some loony toon new world order thing or whatever the conspiracy of the week is.

[zamalek]

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.

[1]: https://www.businessinsider.com/sweden-covid-no-lockdown-str...

[adam_arthur]

That seems dated. Deaths per million is higher in many countries with significantly stricter lockdowns like Spain and Italy.

There are of course density, age, and other differences to consider.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deat...

[disambiguation]

Are you just reacting to that headline?

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?

[1] https://ncov2019.live/data/europe

[beagle3]

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.

So you can’t conclude “it didn’t end well”

[sjwalter]

And omicron arose in vaccinated people and traveled the world in the respiratory tracts of the fully vaxxed.

[Swenrekcah]

Do you have a source for the origin claim?

[shmatt]

SA is only 25% vaxxed. Perfect ground for new mutations

[beagle3]

The vaccine is leaky. It doesn’t stop infection or transmission.

It’s not clear yet if it is putting any evolutionary pressure towards vaccine evasion (some people expect it to).

But SA is no more a breeding ground than anywhere else.

The well-documented breeding grounds are the immune suppressed, and it is incredibly unlikely that omicron developed in one of them.

[tremon]

The vaccine is leaky. It doesn’t stop infection or transmission.

No one ever claimed it would, except for the anti-vax crowd. Infection, transmission, and immunity aren't binary, and over 99% of domain specialists are in agreement on that. So why would you open your post with that claim?

[zamalek]

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.

[beagle3]

Why would it be?