[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

[1718627440]

Early on, there wasn't any lockdown, so instead we could see whole villages and regions being in emergency state, with the military handling the logistics of moving coffins around, because there were so many. The lockdowns after 2 years were avoidable, but the first one absolutely wasn't. I'm quite content with my governments actions in the beginning and I'm not alone, the governmental approval during the first lockdown absolutely skyrocketed (>10%).

[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.