[sam_goody]

Only focusing on mortality from COVID ignores the very real detrimental health, mental-health, business and societal effects of lock-downs, so the long term benefits to the common man are very much more in their favor.

On the other hand they totally blew the power grab opportunities that were taken advantage of by others. So from that perspective there are many politicians that are laughing their way to the bank.

Lock downs became a political tool early on, and any place that still forces lock downs or masking is because politics. Which makes comparing them to another country an apple-and-oranges comparison.

[simplotek]

> Only focusing on mortality from COVID ignores the very real detrimental health, mental-health, business and societal effects of lock-downs, so the long term benefits to the common man are very much more in their favor.

Are they? This reads as petty reasoning of someone who refuses to admit they were wrong even though that data screams in their face, and instead try to grab hold of nonexistent data to justify their personal beliefs.

It's like the "COVID vaccines kill more than the disease" crowd, who keep on moving their "the end is near" calendar date to avoid admitting they were simply pathologically wrong.

> On the other hand they totally blew the power grab opportunities (...)

This reads like a rebranding of the whole "Fauci wants to take over as dictator" conspiracy theory.

Anyway, can you point out exactly a single country ever where enforcing lockdowns had a positive impact on public perception and elections?

If anything, conspiracy theorists who tried to push anti-science rhetoric failed to capitalize from it, specially as their electorate ended up dying disproportionately.

It also didn't helped their cause that politicians who were radically against basic public health measures ended up being caught double- and triple-vaccinating themselves while preaching the opposite.

> Lock downs became a political tool early on, (...)

Anti-establishment politicians tried to attack basic public health measures to turn them into political battles, primarily because they knew that supporting them was a political liability. Thankfully, they failed, and now all they have left is nitpicking about Sweden while the people most vulnerable to their propaganda are now disproportionately hit by the disease.

It saddens me that society learned nothing and these sociopaths still have traction in some circles.

[sam_goody]

> Are they? This reads as petty reasoning of someone who refuses to admit they were wrong even though that data screams in their face, and instead try to grab hold of nonexistent data to justify their personal beliefs.

Oh, absolutely. In fact, I am rather confused which of the items in the list are even in question by you. Health issues - does anyone deny that many other health issues were not dealt with over lock-down [eg. our dentist refused to deal with anything not emergency level for over a year], or that elderly were left unattended because of lock down? Mental Heath issues - this has been discussed recently on HN, but it is pretty obvious, IMO. Business effects - China sets a perfect example, but why do you think all these relief bills were set up? Societal effects - also alot on HN, people are interacting less, and it is reflected in multiple ways.

The data is literally in your face on this, though I am always happy to see if there is something I am missing. Do you have links?

> This reads like a rebranding of the whole "Fauci wants to take over as dictator" conspiracy theory.

Wibber, wat? I don't mean Fauci. And hypocrites in politics exists on all sides of the spectrum.

Many are the country and county where the one in charge used lock-downs as a way of getting the subjects be much further under their thumb. China is a great example.

> the people most vulnerable to their propaganda are now disproportionately hit by the disease

Nope. I actually happen to have facts. In one heavily tracked city [Jerusalem], the community that was most lax about lock-downs also had the least deaths per age overall.

Vaccines are a whole other story [my family was vaccinated, and for better or worse, one got sick from it] - not directly related to the article.