[mountainofdeath]

Indeed this is the case. The timing was unfortunate in that the pandemic hit during the absolute lowest point in trust of public institutions and bad faith actors stepped into the void to take advantage of that.

In terms of covid specifically, experts did what they typically do for high mortality diseases e.g. ebola, SARS where the mortality is high and the only course of action is to seal an area and let it burn through the population but at least contain it. That turned out to be the direct opposite course of action needed.

[_delirium]

It’s a bit more than them starting with a random default playbook for serious disease outbreaks. They started with the playbook for this specific virus family! “Covid” is a synonym for SARS-CoV-2. It’s not that surprising that experts would start with the set of procedures that had successfully contained and eliminated SARS-CoV-1. It didn’t work in the case of v2, but I have trouble seeing why it’s a bad starting point to start with what actually worked in practice to stop v1.

It’s sort of interesting to me that the partisan politics on this have flipped from the early days though. Early on, Bill DeBlasio (at the time, NYC’s left-ish mayor) was against cancelling anything or imposing any travel restrictions, even telling people it was racist to avoid Chinese New Year or St Patrick’s Day celebrations, and xenophobic to ask for restrictions on travel. The NY conservative media were very critical of his decisions to let those events move forward and called for travel bans and event cancellations to stop the virus. Fast-forward a bit and they had each adopted the other side’s positions.

[jandrewrogers]

An issue I had, having been previously quite familiar with the literature on the 2003 variant of COVID, is that the government manifestly ignored many of the scientific findings of that earlier outbreak for political reasons.

It would have been great if they leaned on the science from the 2003 version of the disease, but they didn’t and some of the policies made no sense in light of that prior literature.

[RandomLensman]

Perhaps, but are you familiar with the practice of the 2003 version, too? I don't mean that facetiously, but my experience is that practice and literature are two very different things in medical sciences (and others, too). There is a social component to epidemics, for example, that you don't just get to ignore.

[jack_pp]

Early on it made sense and we were told the lock-down would be a couple of weeks. Those couple of weeks stretched for years and that's why there was a switch when it was obvious lock-downs didn't work but were still imposed.

[bryananderson]

What lockdown? Not a single jurisdiction in the US did a true lockdown like New Zealand, Italy, etc. Not even for two weeks.

I also can’t think of anywhere in the US where anything was still mandated closed a single year after it started, let alone multiple years. I’m struggling to think of anywhere that even came close to a full year.

The revisionism around Covid has gotten wild. Certain businesses had to close for a few months (with government aid), capacity limits came and went for a while after that, and some places required you to wear a mask for longer. But somehow the narrative has become “the government would not let me leave my house for multiple years”.

[didntcheck]

The revisionism seems to be in the other direction. Perhaps this wasn't the case in some of the US (and I commend those states for that), but in the UK there definitely was a good year of on-and-off restrictions involving significant periods where it was outright illegal to meet up with your friends indoors, and businesses had capacity limitations extending well into 2021, even if they may not have been legal requirements at later stages. And even when the restrictions were lifted in 2021, there was much screaming and crying, predictions of medical apocalypses, and accusations of granny killing. If we'd carried on "following the science" (for what it came to mean) we'd barely be out of lockdown now. And when I say "The UK" I'm really talking about England - Wales and Scotland had even harsher lockdowns

[base698]

In California during December 2020 after allowing outside dining they shutdown all restaurants. I don't remember when they relented and allowed outside dining again but it was into 2021. Most schools were closed for almost 2 years. Most offices and theme parks were much much longer.

People conflate China style lockdown with massively disruptive policies we had in California. While I wasn't boarded in my home, I was turned away while outside dining to use the restroom in a restaurant and got threatened by the police by the beach when beaches and parks were still closed.

The narrative is more, if anyone advocates for anything like that again they are the enemy.

[bryananderson]

Restaurants closed for about 6 weeks in some regions in December-January, and ICUs statewide were at 0% capacity in late December so I’d say that was a really good idea. That still doesn’t reach a year after the first shutdowns, and anyway they had been open for months prior, so not even close to a year of total closure.

Most schools definitely were not closed for almost two years either. IIRC the only district that even came close to 2 years was San Francisco (due to seismic levels of school board incompetence, ending in a recall). If you live in SF that could be why it feels like most schools were closed that long—but in fact that length was so abnormal, even in “harsh” California, that it got a generally pro-covid-restrictions city to recall the school board.

> People conflate China style lockdown with massively disruptive policies we had in California.

Ok and they’re wrong since they aren’t even close. People conflate all kinds of things. I’m sorry a police officer threatened you—as a country we definitely have a problem with power-tripping cops. Still doesn’t mean we did a China-style lockdown policy.

> The narrative is more, if anyone advocates for anything like that again they are the enemy.

Yeah see this is what I mean about how this discourse has gotten utterly deranged. Yes, if there’s a respiratory illness straining the ICU system to the breaking point again in the future, I think the government should close restaurants etc. for a few months (with aid for small businesses and individuals). So what does it mean that I am “the enemy”? Are you going to do something to me in that scenario?

[ericfr11]

A policy is not meant to be fun. Paying tax and taxes wearing seatbelt are policies geared towards living together as a society

[spookthesunset]

Seatbelts and taxes vs. covid lockdowns are not even close to comparable.

[jandrewrogers]

It is not possible to have true lockdowns within the US as a Constitutional matter. Any restrictions on free travel within the US is a fundamental right subject to the "strict scrutiny" standard, which could never be met by broad lockdowns.

[ericfr11]

This shows the limits of a 200+ years old piece of paper

[spookthesunset]

That god for that. Counties that didn’t have such a government turned into authoritarian hellholes (Australia, China, and Dominican Republic are good examples).

Or are you arguing we should have gone full China?

[mistermann]

> The revisionism around Covid has gotten wild. Certain businesses had to close for a few months (with government aid), capacity limits came and went for a while after that, and some places required you to wear a mask for longer. But somehow the narrative has become “the government would not let me leave my house for multiple years”.

Technically that's one narrative among many - popular with some, unpopular with others.

Possibly relevant:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture

Etc

[jmopp]

It's an interesting game-theory problem. If everyone locked down, the virus would have been contained. But global cooperation is pretty much impossible, and every choice had its cost.

[nradov]

That is a false premise. First, even if all humans locked down for weeks that wouldn't have contained the virus due to the existence of animal reservoirs. Second, even with perfect global cooperation it's not even possible to lock everyone down. What about farmers, food distribution, healthcare, utilities, law enforcement, etc? Those people are going to carry and spread the virus. The notion of containing a highly contagious respiratory virus was just stupid and unrealistic from the start.

[jmopp]

What it would have done was taken the reproduction number below 1, making contact tracing effective. It's the distinction between 'elimination' and 'eradication'. TB is a classic example of a highly contagious respiratory disease that has been eliminated from much of the developed world. Yes, active TB cases still pop up, but the spread is stopped before it goes out of hand. The fact that associations like the NBA managed to implement a successful bubble shows it would have been possible for essential services to keep moving. Yes, the cost of doing so would have been high, but if people in February 2020 knew what was coming they might have considered it more seriously.

[aleph_minus_one]

> What it would have done was taken the reproduction number below 1, making contact tracing effective.

This assumes that most people in the society are not very privacy-conscious, i.e. are fine with being tracked (contact tracing).

[nradov]

Nonsense. Contact tracing failed everywhere it was tried. And any measures were temporary at best. You can't eliminate a highly contagious disease with multiple animal reservoirs. The virus was always destined to run through the entire human population regardless of what we did. Any belief otherwise is pure hubris.

And personally I'm certainly not willing to participate in any scheme involving the government tracking my location.

[ChadNauseam]

If I remember correctly, the stated goal was not to eliminate Covid, but to “flatten the curve” to prevent hospitals from getting overwhelmed

[didntcheck]

[Speaking from a UK perspective, YMMV in other countries] Originally it was, yes, yet this shortly got brushed under the carpet, and we were repeatedly told "just two more weeks!" with the apparent goal of solving death. Society only opened back up because ordinary people got sick of it. If we'd carried on "listening to experts" we'd have been lucky to have last Christmas with more than 6 people round the table

The goalposts really went supersonic once vaccines came onto the table. Allegedly, they were supposed to be our ticket out of hell, but clearly the enthusiasts were enjoying it too much to allow that. From "just wait this lockdown out until we have a vaccine" to "until all over 40s have been jabbed" to people still insisting that "it's not safe until we've triple jabbed 18 year olds", as we opened up and their apocalyptic fantasies did not come to fruition

[abwizz]

locking everything down is impossible because ppl would start to starve within a week or so. specialisation and compartmentalisation of labor has a price

[josephg]

For a lockdown to be effective, it didn't need to shut down the city completely. Just do enough to get R0 (the avg number of people who each person infects) below 1. This causes the case numbers to drop exponentially. And when case numbers are small enough, contact tracing can be used.

[spookthesunset]

You assume that lockdowns actually work. We have three years of evidence to suggest otherwise. And if that isn’t enough there is this gem of a study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2130424/

Turns out that even after seventeen weeks of complete isolation in Antarctica you can still catch the common cold…

So yeah… you can’t stop Mother Nature no matter how hard you try.

[DiogenesKynikos]

A fair number of countries did have lockdowns that successfully eliminated (as in: completely eliminated the virus within their borders) the virus within weeks. China is the elephant in the room (local elimination by about April 2020), but there are several other countries that did the same thing (such as New Zealand, Australia, Vietnam, Singapore, Taiwan).

On the assumption that you're an American, your country was not organized enough to couple a lockdown with effective contact tracing and mass testing, which is what other countries did to eliminate the virus.

[josephg]

Yep. Australian here. We successfully brought our case numbers down a number of times through expensive, city wide lockdowns. Each time we succeeded and then opened back up, the virus unfortunately found a new route in the country and case numbers went up again.

If the whole world had adopted this strategy, covid would have been eliminated from the planet entirely.

Lots of lives were still saved by our strategy because almost everyone had a chance to get vaccinated before getting covid.

Even with the benefit of hindsight, its still controversial whether the lockdowns were worth it overall. But they were definitely effective at containing covid.

[DiogenesKynikos]

It's also with noting that there were other zero-CoVID countries that were able to maintain control of the virus with less significant lockdowns. The key was early detection of new outbreaks and effective, rapid contact tracing.

Between the initial outbreak and Omicron (roughly, April 2020 - March 2022), most people in China never experienced a lockdown, because each new outbreak was controlled locally before it could spread to the rest of the country.

[mikem170]

> city wide lockdowns ... If the whole world had adopted this strategy, covid would have been eliminated from the planet entirely.

Did you know that covid can infect many other mammals? Here's a summary of the science on this: [0]

> appears that many if not most mammalian ACE-2 receptors are susceptible

> the virus has gone from humans to the animals and back again to human

> found signs of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 in significant percentages of six urban wildlife species

> found signs of the pathogen infecting 17 percent of New York City sewer rats tested

> Exposure could also occur following interactions with pets such as cats and dogs

Does your belief that city wide lockdowns could be used to eliminate covid take the above into account? Wouldn't covid continue to spread in other mammals and reinfect humans again?

I don't know that any experts ever said that lockdowns could eliminate covid. From where did you get such an idea?

[0] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/how-so-ma...

[DiogenesKynikos]

It's not a "belief." It's a fact that was repeated in many cities - and countries - in the real world.

China completely eliminated CoVID-19 from its population in early 2020, and a bunch of other countries did the same.

[dontknowwhyihn]

Australia became a full on prison colony. They didn’t contain covid, they imprisoned their entire population.

[josephg]

I understand why you believe that. Plenty of other Australians think likewise (including most of my Australian friends who live overseas).

And yet, in my home state of Victoria, the state premier behind the lockdowns was reelected after covid with a huge majority. It seems like the way the story unfolded for people inside of Victoria was very different to how the story was told everywhere else.

[pfdietz]

Lockdown may have made sense as a strategy to vaccines and treatments in place. To abolish the virus? It could never have worked. I mean, tell me how likely do you think it would have been that every country could have done something like that, in synchrony?

[account42]

There was also a switch in narrative - early lockdowns were meant to contain the virus while it was changed to "flatten the curve" for the longe lockdowns. Its not unreasonable to be in favor of the former but not the latter.

[renewiltord]

Ultimately, the key learning was the CDC and other federal agencies will propagate misinformation knowingly and intentionally for their perceived public health reasons. I'm no stranger to massive state restrictions of individual rights when fighting infectious diseases. DOTS and friends are an effective means of fighting TB. But intentionally misinforming crosses a line since it makes the organization untrustworthy.

Irrespective of whether masks work or not, the state apparatus chose to go with the message that they don't for the reason that they wanted to preserve supply for healthcare workers.

I had a supply of N95 masks from earlier preparation for forest fires that I gave to healthcare workers here in SF. In future, I shall not donate like this. It is clear that every man is an island and the agencies set up to inform us believe they must control us through deceit instead.

[seanp2k2]

“For the greater good”

For us personally, a quick thought experiment with 4 quadrants:

    - wear a mask vs don’t wear
    - mask helps vs mask doesn’t         help

The balance of inconvenience in the “wear mask, mask doesn’t help” vs possible avoidable death in the “don’t wear, mask helps” made it a very easy decision.

[renewiltord]

I was fortunately already equipped and with reuse (which I, as a superior epidemiologist to many currently so certified, concluded correctly was safe) was able to wear a mask against the advice of the HHS and the NIAID. As someone who already wore masks when ill so as not to infect others, this wasn't too much of a stretch, and it made for an interesting challenge running up Twin Peaks.

However, I have still lost trust in the HHS, who I'd hoped would have been honest about their objectives. A modern shift among institutional scientists has been a substantial loss of truth-speaking. It appears that if they were to consider a random variable x in (0,1) under the conditions:

- that they estimate it to be X

- that they believe the people estimate it to be Y << X

- that they believe the people will estimate it to be Y if they were to reveal that they estimate it to be Z >> X

then they will publicly claim that the variable is valued at Z. That is, despite being tasked with scientific examination, and knowing that they are known to be unreliable they attempt to manipulate the situation so that the public will have the same estimate as they do.

This has the unsurprising effect that their credibility reduces, and therefore the value of Z required rises sufficiently above X that their claims no longer seem reasonable, resulting in a positive feedback loop that results in catastrophically deteriorated credibility.

[strken]

Without the actual numbers this is just a more complicated Pascal's wager. The same argument can justify wearing a helmet because you might be hit in the head by falling meteorites, or wearing a life vest to work in case you slip and fall into a pond.

Not to say wearing a mask is bad! It's just that it needs justification by actual or estimated data, not a fuzzy thought experiment.

[mcny]

It isn't rocket surgery.

If you have a cold, wear a mask. Or at the very least cover your nose and mouth when you sneeze. Do you also need a hundred year weather analysis if someone suggests carrying an umbrella because it is cloudy?

[strken]

That's not a reply to what I wrote. I agree that preventative measures against the spread of disease include wearing a mask in public and that this is a good idea if you've got a cold, but I think that because of an assessment of the risk.

Do you need to wear a mask alone in your own garden? It could still help you avoid a possible death. The only thing that changes between "in public" and "in my garden" is the risk: the consequence is always death. Your four-quadrant thought experiment is meaningless unless you intend to suggest that any risk of death, no matter how minor, justifies an inconvenience that might prevent it.

Frankly, yes, you should look at a daily weather report before carting an umbrella around. If there's a 0.0001% chance of rain then it's okay to risk it.

[christophilus]

You make it sound like masking for a cold is as obvious as knowing it’s going to rain.

When was the first time you wore a mask when you realized you had a cold? (Serious question; not rhetorical.)

I have to say, I don’t know anyone who thought that was an obvious thing to do until 3 years ago. In fact, I know a few people who still wear masks every day, but otherwise, no one I know does it anymore, even if they have a cold.

I don’t think there’s anything obvious about it at all, if obvious means something that everyone can see.

[mistermann]

> It isn't rocket surgery.

You are right, it's worse: it's metaphysics.

> If you have a cold, wear a mask.

I have even a better idea: everyone should behave according to my biased, subjective whims.

[giantrobot]

> The same argument can justify wearing a helmet because you might be hit in the head by falling meteorites, or wearing a life vest to work in case you slip and fall into a pond.

This is just ridiculous because you're purposefully ignoring context.

Getting hit in the head by a meteor is an extremely unlikely event. It's also an event, were it to occur, is even less likely the helmet would actually prevent injury. Those odds don't justify the action.

If you spend no time around bodies of water where a life vest would protect against drowning, then there's no need to wear a life vest. However if you do spend a lot of time around such bodies of water wearing that vest makes more sense. There's nowhere meteor helmets make much sense but very clear situations where life vests make sense.

On the spectrum of utility masks are much closer to life vests than meteor helmets. Masks clearly slow transmission of some diseases. Every operating room in the world requires masks for good reason. They're not magic though, they're simply a component of a hygiene regimen.

The odds on a mask preventing transmission of a respiratory disease are easily high enough to suggest wearing one when a respiratory disease is prevalent. A mask in a grocery store makes sense. It makes less sense pumping gas. It makes no sense at home or driving alone in your car.

[codr7]

And multiple studies have shown that even masks worn in the operating are causing more problems than they're solving.

As for Covid, fresh air and sunlight would likely help more.

[aleph_minus_one]

> The balance of inconvenience in the “wear mask, mask doesn’t help” vs possible avoidable death in the “don’t wear, mask helps” made it a very easy decision.

This assumes that the respective person has a risk-averse personality profile. The mere existence of ice climbers and BASE jumpers should provide sufficient evidence that not everybody's life is about avoiding risks.

Secondly, in many countries masks were mandatory, i.e. the government said it is perfectly fine to use violence (police using violence to enforce the penalty fees) for this. Is applying violence to enforce masks justifiable? I rather don't think.

[matthewdgreen]

I think it’s amusing that your biggest gripe about the pandemic is a few weeks in 2020 where the government put out confusing information about masks. Sure it’s a screwup, but compared to the government’s ongoing foibles sourcing and distributing PPE it was a nothingburger. By contrast, the governor of my state had to obtain PPE through his wife’s connections and had to show up with police to keep the Feds from confiscating it.

[renewiltord]

Not "confusing". Intentional misinformation. I am familiar with lack of state capacity. That can be worked with. I am also familiar with state capacity directed towards information manipulation. To me, the latter is higher risk than the former.

[d0mine]

Propaganda is a fact of life. Why would the COVID topic be any different? If state lies about reasons to start a war (life & death literally), it can lie about anything.

[mistermann]

That is weird, just one of many weird things around the whole COVID spectacle.

Also weird: that we don't do any serious post-incident analysis so we can harden procedures and institutions in case a really big problem knocks on our door someday.

There's something suspicious about this planet if you ask me.

[themitigating]

Who is "They"? Science is a practice not an organization. There's no pope or single church that has rules.

It's crazy your criticizing people for changing if new information comes out. That's the basis of science and why it's not like religon

[MrPatan]

If you don't let some information out in case it changes The Science, what then?

[themitigating]

What does that mean to let some information out in case it changes?

Science doesn't change it's a process, a way of understanding the world.

[MrPatan]

Ok.

I'll explain because there seems to be a genuine misunderstanding.

Of course the scientific method is great, and the only tool we have to understand the world. Of course. Very true.

"The Science", on the other hand, is a sales tool. Something to be invoked to push a product, a policy, whatever.

Science, the scientific method, the sum total of humanity's knowledge and wisdom, can't be stopped. It may be delayed, but truth wins because truth predicts the future, and lies don't.

But "The Science", that's different. Pay off a few key people at the right time, and you can get yourself a nice handy "The Science" to sell whatever it is you want to sell. It won't work forever, but it doesn't need to. By then they've already cashed out their shares, won the election, whatever.

[themitigating]

"But "The Science", that's different. Pay off a few key people at the right time, and you can get yourself a nice handy"

If it's accurate how is this is a bad way to sell something? What's better? You're claiming that it can be corrupted, that applies to many things in life.

[nradov]

The public health measures used against the original SARS were not effective. They did almost nothing. The disease burned out largely on its own.

[account42]

Oh no, those poor innocent institutions having to suffer from low public confidence. How could this have happened to them.

[manuelabeledo]

> That turned out to be the direct opposite course of action needed.

I wonder, in hindsight, what would have been the better course of action.

Taiwan did that and their mortality and contagion rate is orders of magnitude lower than in the US. Same goes for Japan. Hell, even most European countries have a lower mortality rate than the US. All of these countries have also a higher population density than the US.

[spookthesunset]

> Taiwan did that and their mortality and contagion rate is orders of magnitude lower than in the US. Same goes for Japan.

This is simply not true. I don’t care how much the data gets massaged to align with the narrative. It’s a lie. Misinformation, really. Which is par for course when it comes to covid.

[manuelabeledo]

> This is simply not true. I don’t care how much the data gets massaged to align with the narrative

Long story short, you wouldn’t take anything that would not align with your narrative.

A religious zealot.

[tensor]

The countries the tried to contain it until we had vaccines to protect vulnerable populations had far lower mortality rates than those that opened up, including the US.

Seems to me the containment strategy was exactly the action that was needed. Countries that followed the experts advice did far far better.

[dm319]

Disagree. COVID was high mortality at 1% before the vaccine with an especially high contagiousness. Hospitals were overwhelmed in areas that couldn't control the spread, which meant shortages of beds and oxygen for those who could be saved.