[GOD_Over_Djinn]

Absolutely. I feel bad for young people growing up in this broken world. They will never even know what was taken from them.

I realize that I’m probably going to get dogpiled for saying it, but I think that the response to COVID (ie lockdowns) did far more damage than the disease itself.

[jaybrendansmith]

I don't understand why people still blame the lockdowns. When the lockdowns started, it was unknown how dangerous Covid actually was. It could have killed 20%, or reduced lifespan by 30%, or something. Nobody knew. It takes 20/20 hindsight to blame lockdowns for what was a generational catastrophe. It's like blaming shelter in place requirements instead of the bombing of the reich.

[sillyfluke]

To be fair to the parent, despite what they think about the lockdown decision now, it says nothing about whether or not they thought it made any sense then.

It's perferctly possible to believe that the lockdown was a reasonable decision with what was known then, and still believe that the lockdown is to blame for certain unavoidable consequences down the line. Again, the parent might not believe this as well but their point can be taken separately fron your complaint.

Since several generations of Americans are not familiar with a drawn out sustained attack on acceptable cost-of-living parameters, the observation that "people are more awful" should be familiar to many people who lived and endured in places that have had decades-long deteriorating econonmies. If the economy or subjective economic perception had not tanked post-lockdown, the awfulness of people would be much less pronounced I believe.

[grosswait]

Nobody knew, that is true. But not everyone was in agreement, it only seemed that way because dissenting voices were silenced. Do some research and you’ll find that there were plenty of people predicting bad outcomes from the lockdowns. I was not one of them, but they exist for sure.

[rufus_foreman]

Two weeks to flatten the curve.

Institutions can only lose their credibility once. That was one of the worst things that Covid did.

[GOD_Over_Djinn]

Some, including myself, were against lockdowns from day 1, and were viciously attacked for it.

[fragmede]

It's a pretty anti-social viewpoint. Why do you think you shouldn't have been?

[GOD_Over_Djinn]

It’s not anti-social, it is pro-social. To stand for the right of people to live freely, for children to get an education and to socialize with their peers, for businesses to serve their communities and provide jobs for people to feed their families.

You are the anti-social one, who would condemn entire populations to house arrest based upon dubious-at-best ideas. In my city, even outdoor gatherings of more than five people were prohibited. It was so absurd as to be almost comical, if the consequences weren’t so tragic.

Are you truly blind to the damage wrought by shutting down the entire world at the flip of a switch? Children are in crisis, inflation skyrocketed, people cannot afford to live, buy homes, start a family, get an education… and you have the nerve to call me anti-social?

And what did it accomplish? Did it actually save lives? I think not, especially when compared to targeted protection and support of vulnerable populations (elderly, immune compromised) rather than a blanket shutdown of the entire country.

Once this issue became a red vs blue thing, everyone collectively turned their brains off. The above commenter is a prime example.

[fragmede]

Basic logic here: the things you’re defending only work when the people who make them possible aren’t getting knocked out by uncontrolled spread.

Kids don’t get an education if teachers and staff are sick. Businesses don’t serve communities if workers are out in waves. Families don’t stay afloat if workplaces shut down because too many people are ill.

You can absolutely critique the execution and the results. Plenty of it was messy. But pretending that doing nothing was somehow pro social ignores the obvious: collective safety is what keeps all those freedoms functioning in the first place.

[anon291]

Early on , it was clear the rate of covid complications did not merit the lockdowns. I was an early supporter of lockdowns and an even earlier supporter of ending them. It was a cold... Can we say that now? A relatively moderate flu like cold for the vast majority of people. It did not merit shutting down or slowing global trade

[jaybrendansmith]

But you must admit it was a gamble at the time. My mother got Covid early, before lockdowns. She spent a week in the hospital and almost died. She then had a stroke, she can no longer walk. She also got cancer, and now can barely talk. Please don't tell me it was not deadly dangerous to older folks. If the bird flu comes, and with it a mortality rate of 50%, and there is a vaccine, everybody will be locked down and forced to take the vaccine. It wont matter what anybody's opinions are about the possible harmful effects of lockdowns or vaccines.

[StopDisinfo910]

I seem to remember that Sweden applied the WHO recommendations as they were written and didn’t lock down because the damage of locking down is huge and everybody dog pilled on them about how it was stupid.

Turn out their excess mortality was quickly better than the other Nordic countries and their economy and mental health did better if I remember correctly.

People should complain more about the lockdowns. Most of them were extremely poorly implemented and stupidly managed.

[op00to]

You remember incorrectly.

Norway and Sweden took opposite approaches in 2020—Norway used strict lockdowns, tight border controls, and intensive outbreak tracking, while Sweden kept society largely open. The results weren’t subtle. As the Juul paper puts it: “That resulted in 477 COVID-19 deaths (Norway) and 9,737 (Sweden) in 2020, respectively.” Source: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8807990/

[StopDisinfo910]

You are only looking at 2020 and posting a source from 2021. Now look at 2021, 2022 and 2023. That’s the whole point. Sweden had slightly more excess mortality the first year especially amongst the elderly but they ended up doing similar or slightly better than their neighbours if you look at the whole pandemic.

They did significantly better on other metrics however like youth mental health and education.

I posted a ton of sources in another comment.

It’s not that surprising anyway. It’s not like Sweden did a weird and surprising experiment. They just stuck to the already existing plans designed to contain influenza while everyone else freaked out after Imperial College published their dubious models and started acting irrationally.

[op00to]

That’s not what the Nordic data show. Sweden didn’t “end up doing better.” It had by far the worst COVID-19 mortality in 2020, because it kept society open while its neighbors used strict controls.

The only reason Sweden’s later all-cause mortality looks “similar” is mortality displacement: COVID killed so many frail, high-risk people in 2020 that Sweden had fewer dementia and respiratory deaths in 2021–22. Nordic registry papers explicitly note this. Sweden didn’t outperform anyone. Its early losses were just so large that later excess deaths looked artificially low.

[StopDisinfo910]

> That’s not what the Nordic data show. Sweden didn’t “end up doing better.” It had by far the worst COVID-19 mortality in 2020, because it kept society open while its neighbors used strict controls.

> The only reason Sweden’s later all-cause mortality looks “similar” is mortality displacement: COVID killed so many frail, high-risk people in 2020 that Sweden had fewer dementia and respiratory deaths in 2021–22. Nordic registry papers explicitly note this. Sweden didn’t outperform anyone. Its early losses were just so large that later excess deaths looked artificially low.

Exactly, that's exactly what I said and what the data show. We do agree except obviously there is absolutely nothing artificial about it. You can't discount the data because you don't like what it shows.

So, indeed, what the data show is that other countries barely postponned death despite Sweden having a dry tinder effect in 2020 - plenty of people vulnerable to respiratory diseases - following two years of mild flu. Sweden has indeed less excess mortality in 2021 and 2022 and tellingly the overall number is in every way comparable when it's not slightly better than the other Nordic countries. Sweden early losses in 2020 weren't even that large by the way.

To which I reach the inevitable conclusion, lockdowns were entirely useless, massive distruption of society - disproportionately impacting the youngest with schools closure - to gain mere weeks of life for the most vulnerables. Focusing on shielding the most vulnerables and putting in place containment habits were totally adequate counter measures. Once again, this is not in any way surprising, these were the WHO recommendations for containing an influenza pandemic.

[StopDisinfo910]

To the people downvoting me, you are welcome to actually look at the numbers. [1]

Feel free to read about what it shows about lockdowns. [2] [3] [4]

I understand that the US has somehow turned this topic into a political debate and people hate facing that they might have been wrong but I am thankfully not from this part of the world and the evidence is not in favour of lockdowns ever being such a good idea. If you read the BBC article, you will see that we have reached such a polarised and abusive moment in time that even some experts are scared commenting on the available data.

[1] https://academic.oup.com/eurpub/article/34/4/737/7675929?log...

[2] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11127-024-01216-7

[3] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ecaf.12611

[4] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250304-the-countries-th...

[GOD_Over_Djinn]

When I was younger, I thought of dems as the party of logic and reason, and repubs as bible-thumpers. I don’t think this was entirely wrong, but the unthinking dogmatism of left-leaning people about lockdowns did a lot to disabuse me of that notion.

[whiplash451]

Genuine question: do you think that the lockdowns had such long-lasting effect on people as to explain the problems described above?

Why would a few months of a “bad idea” induce decade-long changes?

[wkat4242]

For me yes. I'm not the same, much more depressed. I was already prone to it but two years of home imprisonment while living alone really damaged me. I also have a really bad reaction to the masks due to a youth trauma where I nearly choked. Being forced to trigger that memory daily was terrible. I did wear them of course (I'm in Europe so we had quite heavy restrictions). Maybe it was necessary for society but for me personally the damage was much higher than the benefit. On the bright side when it was over in 2022 it did make me go out again and I go out partying every weekend until 6am still. That probably wouldn't have happened because I'm in my 50s.

I think the measures were a bit overblown though some were necessary. But shit like curfews was ridiculous. It made contagion worse because the shops were only open during the day so everyone had to go there during a much shorter time. So they were always chock full of customers, exactly the thing you don't want during a pandemic.

[maxerickson]

It can be that social order is partly maintained by conformance and a bunch of people found out that there aren't consequences for choosing not to conform.

In the local facebook rants group, any time someone posts about someone doing something that is mildly antisocial (a reasonable thing to rant about), there's always several comments saying "So what, who cares".

Like sure, it isn't the end of the world to park like an asshole, but it would suck if everybody did it, so it's better if no one does it. And it's the same for dozens of other minor little things you might encounter in a given week.

[Tanoc]

Normal people were shown that they had no real bearing on the world, and were forced to live without being rushed for a year or in some places two. Without the need to constantly look over their shoulders for encroaching crises people started to examine the world around them. They had time to enjoy things without constantly battling with mental, emotional, or physical exhaustion that lead to procrastination just to recover a little bit. So many realized they were being deprived of not only recreation, but fulfilling their basic needs outside of food and sleep. So they shifted from fearing the systems that deprived them to loathing them and the people who administrated them, and resolved to deny contributing to those systems as much as possible. That's why there were so many sweeping changes starting in May of 2020, not in the way the systems of the world were run, but in the way the public at large engaged with them.

Much of what's been happening over the last five years can be compared to the behaviours of those suffering through trauma after long term abuse. Some continued the cycle against new targets, ignoring a collective truth. Others realized they were victims of the cycle and chose to work towards safeguards that would prevent it from continuing. Another group learned about the cycle and thought they would benefit from being new instigators for it.

[aleph_minus_one]

> Why would a few months of a “bad idea” induce decade-long changes?

I don't know about how COVID-19 was handled in the USA, but in Germany it rather was "many years of bad idea".

[listenallyall]

That's like asking "why would one car crash that lasted a few seconds change your driving habits for years?" - or perhaps your entire outlook on life, the consequences of not appreciating the things around you in the moment, the realization that life is fleeting, that maybe "getting to work on time" shouldn't be as high a priority as it once was, etc, etc. All it takes is one major shake-up for people to be changed, often for life.

[bragh]

It wasn't a few months, it was a few years of back-and-forth political and corporate shenanigans with a new narrative every few months that the $CURRENT_THING crowd happily ran along with.

January 2020: there is nothing to afraid of, the new disease is mostly harmless and affects only the elderly and immunocompromised. Closing down borders is xenophobic. March 2020: do not go outside unless critically necessary and if you violate the rules, we will severely punish you May 2020: it's fine to have large public gatherings for BLM protests.

February 2020: masks do nothing and actually are harmful unless you are trained to use a mask, do not buy any masks. April 2020: wear a mask if you go outside, or you kill everybody else. Your own fault that you don't have a mask.

Summer of 2020: look, it's actually so great that we are all working remotely now, the nature is healing, all the emissions are so much reduced, this is the new future! Summer of 2023: everybody back to the office, real estate is suffering. People who joined during COVID time? Your contract is now altered, pray we do not alter it any further.

The promises around vaccines, printing money and "loans for struggling businesses" are even more stories of their own. Beats me why after a few years of these kind of shenanigans people would generally get tired of other people.

[rootusrootus]

I certainly got tired of the people who decided the answer was to become antisocial and not even try to mitigate the risks, and then shame anyone who did. Lost a bit of my faith in humanity. Well, more than a bit, I think.

[bragh]

And all those years could have been avoided by treating a new unknown disease as it should have been treated instead of trusting China's word on it. Go figure.

[diogenescynic]

>I certainly got tired of the people who decided the answer was to become antisocial and not even try to mitigate the risks, and then shame anyone who did. Lost a bit of my faith in humanity. Well, more than a bit, I think.

The masks didn't do shit and neither did vaccinations. It was all scaremongering. Don't you get it? Israel had nearly 100% vaccination rate but didn't do any better than Gaza which had none. Masks don't prevent the spread at all. The 6 foot distancing rule was just made up. Why do people not understand this? Is it willful ignorance?

[rootusrootus]

> Is it willful ignorance?

I think it might be. In my experience, the ignorance goes together very closely with political ideology. That also ends up being a pretty good predictor of who thinks masks were supposed to protect the wearer versus who thinks they were to try and slow down the transmission rate from infected people.

Anyway ...

West Bank and Gaza: 941.84 deaths per million people, 29% vaccination rate by end of 2021.

Israel: 887.20 deaths per million people, 64% vaccination rate by end of 2021.

[diogenescynic]

>That also ends up being a pretty good predictor of who thinks masks were supposed to protect the wearer versus who thinks they were to try and slow down the transmission rate from infected people.

You're projecting. I fully understand the goal, but all the evidence shows they did nothing (air still escapes, people wear them incorrectly, the virus was never even proven to be airborne). They were telling people to take their masks off between bites/eating at restaurants. It was security theater. People who don't understand this just take safety in following the herd. They certainly aren't exhibiting critical thinking skills.

You also don't understand how to compare apples to apples. How did those death rates change from 2021 compared to previous years? I bet it was virtually unchanged. That's the point. Compare Palestine 2021 to Palestine 2015 and Israel 2021 to Israel 2015. The vaccine saved no one. If the vaccine was truly effective, you would see Israel vastly outperforming Palestine starting in 2021. Did it? And how is 63 per 1,000,000 a statistically significant number even if your argument were true? I would likely attribute that to other conditions like lack of resources compared to Israel. Otherwise, you're telling me Israel vaccinated more than 2x as many people and only saved 63 people per 1,000,000 and you think that proves your point?

[BeFlatXIII]

Citation needed.

[diogenescynic]

Use critical thinking. Google it yourself. Come to your own conclusions. Don't just believe whatever you see on CNN and MSNBC.

[intalentive]

You summed it up nicely. Suggests that the people in power are really just flying by the seat of their pants.

[lotsofpulp]

It wouldn’t. The response to COVID merely accelerated the changes that were happening due to changes in the population age histogram.

[graemep]

> I think that the response to COVID (ie lockdowns) did far more damage than the disease itself.

Possibly true in some places. I think it very likely did in the UK.

> I feel bad for young people growing up in this broken world

The world has always been broken. Look at the 20th Century, two world wars, multiple smaller wars, Gulag, great leap forward, cold war, genocides.....

In many ways the world is better than its ever been.

What is true is that the golden age the west had from the end of the cold war until the early 21st century has come to a close, but that was an exceptional time for people in a small proportion of the world.

Like the username. Nice reference.

[bsder]

> I realize that I’m probably going to get dogpiled for saying it, but I think that the response to COVID (ie lockdowns) did far more damage than the disease itself.

You're going to blame Covid and/or Covid response for the fact that monopolies can jack up prices without consequence? That's your conclusion? Seriously?

What's happened is that McDonald's assumed they were a monopoly supplier like everybody else and jacked prices. McDonald's unfortunately discovered that "not eating out at all" is a viable substitute to their monopoly. Whoops.

However, if you want to fix the enshittification that is going on, you need to aggressively break up the monopolies everywhere in order to insert slack back into the system to re-enable competition.

On top of that, basing everything around "Always Late(tm) Inventory" (aka "Just In Time Inventory") means that there is zero slack in the system so even IF you want to compete, there is no upstream provider that can supply you with enough material to make a meaningful difference.

Want to fix modern capitalism? Bust monopolies. Over and over. At all levels. In all fields (not just tech). Aggressively.