[01100011]

Properly done with what the consensus opinion was at the time the decisions were made, or properly done in hindsight and colored with political bias?

It's weird to me how quickly folks forgot the depth of our ignorance during the beginning of covid. Do you remember when we all started washing our groceries when we got home because we weren't even sure if covid survived on surfaces? Remember when we were desperate to slow the curve because medical staff were overwhelmed and people were dying from lack of services?

Sure, in hindsight we really screwed kids up with lockdowns. We probably kept it all going too far for too long. There was probably politics on both sides and lack of purely rational decisions on both sides.

[vitehozonage]

You seem to have the timing all different compared to my memory. I remember when there were less than 1000 cases worldwide (i remember clearly because i developed a tracker that kept count even then). That was when i personally was scared because we knew nothing about it. But during that time, the mainstream opinion was that nobody cared. Infected Chinese people were allowed to fly all over the world, there were zero controls, for i think over a month - maybe 2 months - after it began spreading.

Then in February we got strong data that had a low fatality rate and mostly only threatened old people, similar to the flu, for example from the Diamond Princess cruise ship that provided a clear view since it was a closed environment with a lot of older people where everyone could be tested. Only after this did the lockdowns start and then continue for years.

So i think the response was catastrophic. There was no response at the time when it was an unknown disease and it could have been an existential threat for all we knew. Then there was an irrational over-response that lasted very long when we had strong data that indicated it wasnt that much worse than the flu. So now people wont even take it seriously or trust any messaging next time there is a potential pandemic. It is difficult to imagine a worse response or outcome.

[archagon]

You are misremembering. The “irrational over-response” came once we realized just how incredibly contagious the disease was, since it ran the risk of completely overwhelming hospitals and causing a collapse of health care systems. (And came very close in some places such as Italy.)

[vitehozonage]

I disagree. I looked up dates to verify. I suppose if you got your information from mainstream media it would seem like it went as you say. But it is a fact that the spread started in December 2019 [1], and the Diamond Princess data was available in February [2], and lockdowns started in March [3]

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic

2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_on_Diamond_P...

3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_lockdowns

[archagon]

I don't see how this contradicts what I said. Serious lockdowns started in response to hospitals getting swamped, too late to actually stop the virus but just in time to barely keep health care afloat. As such, I fail to see how you could call such a response "irrational" unless you've memory-holed the corpse trucks, treatment tents, and so on.

[the_snooze]

>We probably kept it all going too far for too long.

That's where I've landed looking back on it. The first month or so of staying home, being overly cautious, and "flattening the curve" made sense given the unknowns. But limiting outdoor gatherings in some contexts but not others (no-go on outdoor parties, but George Floyd protests are fine), keeping kids in Zoom school through 2021, and continued neuroticism even after vaccines were widely available---all that left a sour taste in my mouth.

[01100011]

Remember when it was forbidden to take off your mask on a plane... unless you were eating? Somehow food killed the virus. There was a lot of stupidity.

But I'm also hearing from people who are convinced of a vast conspiracy and believe we knew day one that the lockdowns were a bad idea(see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Barrington_Declaration). But we didn't know. It's tempting to cherry-pick the well reasoned opinions of a minority of experts especially when it backs up your worldview but I'm not having it.

[NicholasGurr]

A lot of the contradictory nonsense was simply a result of the election year. As such, cynical people in power were aware they could make recommendations that would be unhelpful to the incumbent president’s re-election. Low economic activity AND civil unrest were both great factors for getting Trump out.

[g-b-r]

There was even more contradictory nonsense outside the US, in countries without elections in sight