Lockdown skeptics getting some press, even if social media keeps censoring them for having the “wrong opinion”.
It’s one thing to say the virus doesn’t exist or comes from cell phone towers; it’s quite another to justify shutting down the economy.
2 Likes
Good contact tracing report from a Korean office building/ call center. Nearly everyone who got it were seated in the same big open room where the infected person was working, and very few cases elsewhere despite that person occasionally moving around to other parts of the building. Suggests extended duration and proximity are the high risk factors.
1 Like
This is a herd immunity model that incorporates the effects of different cohorts in the population having different activity levels and social interaction levels between groups, reflecting age groups and high/low socializing population segments.
two main conclusions are that
-
Herd immunity is reached much sooner when these effects are included, with most of the effect coming from the variation in activity levels. For example, you could get a herd immunity at 43% instead of 60% for a virus with R0=2.5.
-
Social distancing type strategies can reduce the number of cases overall, but there is a level at which the harshest measures actually increase the number of cases when eventually relaxed, since they stamp out the virus before it reaches herd immunity and then there’s a second wave outbreak that overshoots and gets more people than were necessay than if your lockdown was just strict enough to get to herd immunity
I prefer to think of “herd immunity” as more of a concept than a specific target. Even at a mere 10% immunity, that’s still 1 out of 10 potential infections being blocked. It obviously doesnt stop the virus, but it definitely slows it down - and that effect just progressively grows.
That’s true, but if the virus is 10% slowed the outbreak may still be growing and you still have a real problem. The point of herd immunity is that if a new case arises, it won’t expand and will eventually die off due to an inability to spread effectively. As such, if you’ve got an outbreak and you’re trying to manage it without any help from vaccines, miracle drugs, etc, you want to aim towards having just that many people exposed as the herd immunity fraction, since that minimizes the number of people who get sick before the virus should die off.
Here’s a nice chart from the paper that shows how different levels of lockdowns can minimizing the total amount of people infected as well as control the amount sick at any one time. If the outbreak spreads super fast, it will infect considerably more than the minimum herd immunity level and hence more people will be sick (and some die) than if you slow it down. OTOH, if you slow it down too much and have fewer people exposed than the herd immunity level, you’ll have a second wave outbreak that many again overshoot and lead to unnecessary additional exposures / deaths
1 Like
But if the temporary “immunity” after infection is only, say six months (or even if it’s ~2 years like SARS-COV-1. For Covid-19 I have seen no estimates of actual “immunity” duration), with something as deadly (%-wise, plus the still-being-determined percentage with long term damage or other complications after recovery), going this route seems to mean intentionally re-infecting that 40-70% of the population again each and every 6-24 months. This seems like a much bigger deal that’s not addressed by proponents like some FOX anchors who contend “most” people have insignficant risks and should intentionally infect themselves and others, despite most of the US (for example) also having comorbidities like diabetes and heart disease.
It seems pretty irresponsible to make policy decisions relying on such assumptions without data to back it up. Sure, it might work out, but the risks are high that some of the assumptions are wrong and it’s not possible to simply turn back the clock after getting everyone infected.
Nobody knows yet of course but from what I’ve been reading, based on the antibody levels and similar viruses, I think the best guess is “a few years”, although it could be either longer or shorter.
It seems pretty irresponsible to make policy decisions relying on such assumptions without data to back it up. Sure, it might work out, but the risks are high that some of the assumptions are wrong and it’s not possible to simply turn back the clock after getting everyone infected.
The risks are high regardless of what you do. When facing an unknown threat, you have to make policy decisions with incomplete information. We could have locked down our borders and all international flights in early January and maybe avoided 100k in deaths here in the US. Was the evidence good enough then? If you asked the WHO you’d get a very different answer than if you asked Taiwan’s CDC, and we can see the difference in how that went.
What about now? Does lockdown help at all vs just social distancing, or compared to locking away everyone over 60 and letting the younger people live normally, or whatever other policies you can imagine? I don’t see any hard evidence of lockdown policies being better at saving lives, and they’re getting implemented more for reflexive political reasons (“other people are doing it, I don’t want to get blamed for not doing enough”). Sure there are reasons to think that will help, but does it help more than it hurts? Maybe?
What if we never get a vaccine? Then all the lockdown was a big waste and we’re just wrecking the economy and eventually 50% or whatever of the world ends up getting it anyway. These things are unknownable but you still have to figure the odds and take your best guess.
1 Like
IMO, in the USA, only a couple areas would actually have approached something that could be characterized as a “lockdown”. However, there was a broad reduction in activities. I’m not saying I feel we should or should not have had a stronger shutdown.
The stay at home / “safer at home” policies are not ideal. Unfortunately there weren’t really any other options at the time. I don’t think you’ll find anyone advocating a shutdown until there’s a vaccine. That’s a misdirection from crazy talking heads on TV and many R politicians. The argument is to resume activities in a safe and methodical manner, and disagreement on what that looks like – with one politics/propaganda “side” just making up a fairy tale without any support for things actually turning out the way they argue. Completely closed and everyone locked in their houses indefinitely or everything back to “normal” immediately and just pretend there’s no virus anymore are NOT the only two options.
You’re right. It’s pretty generally agreed there was no point in them if we didn’t set up contact tracing and ramp up testing in the interim. Because then we might soon just be back where we started. In the USA, we have significantly ramped up testing and decreased active infections (in some states – while others have continued an upward trajectory). And brought things much nearer to ability for a containment strategy. Unfortunately, it seems like policy may have been put into reverse prematurely (not enough ramp up, not enough contact tracing ability, too many remaining active infections) before that gap was eliminated. Everyone still hopes we’re lucky and still get through without another explosion of cases. And we might still make it out. Definitely a large gamble, with much bigger potential economic consequences if the gamble fails than those that would have occurred if the process was implemented a little more cautiously and methodically and with more clear federal leadership. A long and slow burn can have a much larger total economic impact than a short but painful voluntary pause. Even ignoring the human costs factor. Lots of businesses are already starting to permanently close up because they see the long burn path that has been chosen and they are not solvent in that situation.
1 Like
Shutting down the economy was fully justified back in February/March. Our critical medical supplies were scarce. Comparatively nothing was known about this novel virus. We didn’t know how bad things might become.
That was then. This is now. Today much of that initial justification has evaporated. Indeed, the shutdown TODAY might be doing us more harm than the virus!!
Conditions change. Ya gotta keep up. 
1 Like
Yes. Now we know there’s significant asymptomatic spread, meaning you need contact tracing, testing, and quarantines of all contacts once you find a symptomatic case. Additionally we know children are catching the virus, and even though they aren’t getting the severe respiratory symptoms, they can develop other complications even month(s) after clearing the virus from their systems. Plus, of course, we know they’re getting infected and can spread the virus to people in their households or at schools. Additionally, we know a significant portion of hospitalizations are people in their 30s-40s and even though they end up “recovering”, the tougher infections requiring hospitalizations are likely to have other long term heart, lung, kidney, or other damages. 20-30% of lab-confirmed covid19 hospitalizations are below 50yrs old, and another 30% are below 65.
And of course, as you pointed out (but seem to have attributed to “the virus not having been as bad as it could have been”), we have demonstrated that the spread of the virus can be controlled by collective action.
You’re also grossly misinformed if you think there is no critical medical supplies scarcity anymore. It’s only partly your fault because there’s people making those claims that there’s “too much PPE” now that you’re seeing on TV or (just as likely in your case) listening to on the radio… of course the doctors and nurses are all still saying there are severe shortages, they’ve not gone away. And the shortage of supplies is unlikely to go away anytime soon. This does not mean it’s an impossible situation, but there are still shortages and there are now policies (such as reuse of disposable PPE) that would have prior been inconceivable in a first world healthcare system.
2 Likes
You must be on the west coast with thinking like that.
It’s a big country. You should get out more. It would help to widen your viewpoint.
Are you still sheltering in your house and disinfecting everything that arrives in the mail?
1 Like
Definitely! But I’m old and have at least three comorbidities I know of. No way do I believe younger, healthy people should shut down their lives completely and risk financial ruin just to help protect me. It’s up to me to protect myself; and that’s what I’m doing.
And when I wrote he should “get out more” what I meant was he should take into account a wider swath of American opinion. From BC on down his corner of this continent has views NOT widely shared.
2 Likes
" Sixty-eight percent of Americans worry their state governments are lifting COVID-19 restrictions too quickly, according to a poll by Pew Research Center. Pew polled nearly 11,000 U.S. adults in their survey, with the results showing a 2% increase in worried Americans from a poll it conducted in early April.
The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.4 percentage points.
The findings are similar to a poll conducted by Navigator Research, which polled 10,000 people this week. Its findings show 60% of Americans say they worry social distancing will end too soon, “endangering the economy and putting American lives at risk.”"
False. Also not sure which “corner of the continent” Texas is, never heard of it being referred to as a corner of the continent before.
edit:
That’s a false binary choice.
3 Likes
Ridiculous! You honestly have no clue whereof you write.
Grow up. Try to obtain some perspective.
You think it’s ridiculous that the majority think their states are lifting restrictions too soon? Just fake news/fake polls or what is the conspiracy theory? What exactly was ridiculous about referencing the polls?
Do you realize “growing up” refers to more than age? You can have an excessive age and have not grown up. That’s a pretty common affliction.
I knew what you meant.
I twas just a good ironic out of context statement…
1 Like
That to me is a perfectly reasonable opinion and attitude.
I think it would be a LOT more practical if states loosened restrictions BUT kept dept lockdown rules for anyone who isn’t over 60 years old and/or has a complicating health condition.
However I fear there are far too many people who have health complications that make them susceptible or who are senior citizens who don’t share that opinion and who dont take the shut down serious.
Not to mention even further shifting the burden onto disadvantaged groups (elderly and/or with complicating health conditions that don’t have a choice because they don’t have the economic means). Unless you think we’d also get a stimulus package through to cover the bills for all of those people specifically. I’d put the probability of that at near zero.
There are currently states that “suggest” the idea you wrote out. Such as TX. 65+ and vulnerable groups are directed to continue to basically shelter in place. But few do. And they won’t continue to qualify for unemployment if their employer opens up.
It also seems pretty cruel to extend this out (which seems to be the only logical extension of the that “plan”) and have everyone over 65 potentially shelter in place for years.