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.
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.
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.
From day one, I was hearing about suggestions of social distancing and NK1 masks would do 80% of the work for you. It took waaay to long for that information to disseminate.
My standing statement is: The idea of a pandemic was so well established that Hollywood made multiple bad movies about the idea.
The other key piece that gets magically brushed aside is that there was a pandemic during the Obama administration. Obviously not as severe, but nonetheless a warning.
Yet we were somehow unprepared just a few years later? And those same incompetent entities and experts were the source of our inflation understanding and response to COVID?
I think not. Very little passes the smell test. It didn’t them. It’s even less so - if you look & listen - now.
What you’re failing to acknowledge is the public was right. It was “leadership” across the board that failed. It’s been documented and continues to be documented. It’s simply not advertised, else the lack of trust gap would widen and be more than justified.
The failure(s), we are worse off for it at this point. The handling of the COVID 19 pandemic was as misguided and anemic as Bush’s “Keep shopping” (i.e., his advise to the country in response to 9/11).
Blaming those without power for the shortcomings of those with power is revisionist history bullshit. T
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.
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.
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
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%).
When did I say that doing nothing was the correct course of action? Oh wait - I didn’t! But it sure makes a convenient straw man for you to argue against since you are incapable of addressing my actual position, which I contrasted hamfisted lockdowns against: the targeted protection of vulnerable groups such as the elderly or immune compromised people, rather than the blanket shutdown of the entire country.
> 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.
Do you not realize that the virus is still out there in the world? And that we’re not locking down? And hardly anyone is wearing a mask, social distancing, or getting vaccine boosters?
And yet, somehow, we don’t have piles of dead bodies being cremated in the streets by FEMA workers in hazmat suits. Curious, isn’t it?
It couldn’t be any more obvious that the lockdowns were totally unnecessary and a giant mistake. Just take a look around.
It almost seems like the truly dangerous epidemic is of people forming such strong attachments to emotional dogma and propaganda that they are unable to perform kindergarten-level logical deduction.
Being against lockdowns from day 1 wasn’t some principled pro social stance. Day 1 was when we had no vaccines, no immunity, no treatments, and hospitals were already buckling from basic spread. Opposing mitigation at that moment wasn’t foresight, it was ignoring exponential math.
You can absolutely argue the execution was messy and the fallout was real. Lots of people agree with that. But holding up early blanket opposition as if it was the reasonable position is just rewriting the conditions we were actually in. The only reason things look manageable now is because immunity and treatments exist. Day 1 without them didn’t magically support the world staying fully open.
> Being against lockdowns from day 1 wasn’t some principled pro social stance.
As much as people like you want to position yourselves as objective arbiters of morality, you’re anything but.
> we had no vaccines, no immunity, no treatments
So? Covid is simply not that dangerous for otherwise healthy people.
> hospitals were already buckling from basic spread
That speaks more to how brittle, under-resourced, and plagued by perverse incentives our healthcare system is, than to the threat posed by covid.
> But holding up early blanket opposition as if it was the reasonable position is just rewriting the conditions we were actually in.
You’re saying that opposing the total annihilation of societal norms, behaviors, and patterns is… unreasonable? Do you hear yourself? It’s so painfully obvious that your “thinking” is purely motivated by your desire to be morally and intellectually superior than those you bitterly attack. I can’t fathom how your self awareness is so poor that you can’t see it.
> The only reason things look manageable now is because immunity and treatments exist.
Pure bullshit. The virus was simply never that big of a threat to a healthy person, full stop. You live in a filter bubble-fueled alternate reality where you indulge your most basic and animalistic emotions of fear, anger, and hatred of “others”.
Get a grip! Practically nobody is getting vaccine boosters or any other anti-covid measure. If your fallback is to point to herd immunity, then you’re effectively aligning yourself with the Swedish approach.
Your comment above was sufficient, nothing here added additional meaningful information, it's not worth your time or the parent's to go down this road. It wasn't believed to be a flu in the beginning and I think the excess death stats bear that out. Once the people tracking it think it's equivalent to the flu, rigid policy makes less sense.
I wish people would just accept that public policy need not align with what's right for them personally based own their health own situation. I can simultaneously understand why a public policy of lockdowns on Day 1 makes sense, while at the same time fight for exceptions to the rules due to my personal situation. Everyone I think is aware that the future is personalised medicine, that we're at the very beginning of that awareness, and that the current state of the art in medicine is very crude from that perspective.
Hell, if we had infinite money we should have just sent anyone 60 plus or in ill health to Florida, Texas, SoCal and Mexico for a 6-months/year vacation and mandated that they try to spend most of their time outdoors.
This isn't about the later stuff. My statement was that being against lockdowns is an anti-social viewpoint and that you were rightly attacked for being against them. Nothing you've written challenges that. In a spherical vacuum of a society with no left right blue or China, no Epstein files, a pathogen has been introduced to your society. You don't know anything about it at all. It could be Ebola, it could be a total nothing buger. What do you do in response? Do you stay open and infect your populace, or do you lock down? It's a huge disruption, to everything and everyone. In the face of the unknown, what do you chose to do?
In the face of not knowing something, do we try and be safe, or do we say YOLO and fuck everyone who's role puts them in harms way?
> Nothing you've written challenges that
Apparently your reading comprehension is low
> You don't know anything about it at all. It could be Ebola, it could be a total nothing buger.
Except that’s just not true. You’re just inventing scenarios to scare yourself and others. Covid is a respiratory coronavirus, they are extremely thoroughly studied and well understood. We didn’t “know nothing” about it. That’s just a total fabrication that you invented because you’ve been thoroughly trounced in this debate.
> What do you do in response?
For the last time, TARGETED PROTECTION OF VULNERABLE POPULATIONS.
> Do you stay open and infect your populace, or do you lock down?
False dichotomy, see above paragraph where I once again spoonfeed you basic common sense.
Locking down is the extreme position, and should require an extreme amount of evidence advocating for it.
Don’t bother responding. You’ve made zero interesting points, and rely solely on sensational rhetoric, accusations, false dichotomy, straw men, and ad hominem. There isn’t an ounce of logic or maturity in any of your comments. Thus, I’ve grown bored of walloping you.
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.
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.
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/
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
Anecdotal, my uncle, several friends' relatives died from COVID during those lockdowns. I don't know / heard anyone died because of flu (in my extended circle of people I know)
Most people are not a "hospitalized older adult". Yet they treated everyone, regardless of age, gender, health as if they were on death's door. The lock downs were absolutely overkill and went on far, far too long.
Propaganda? COVID was the third most common verified cause of death in the US in the first 18 months after the lockdown started in March, and that's despite the lockdown. That's 10x more deaths per month than the particularly bad flu last year. Do you not remember the morgue trucks? The whole health system was overwhelmed.
Too many people either never saw or forgot about the morgue trucks. Or the footage that showed flocks of vultures circling over south american cities from afar. Desperate people coughing and dying in their own cars in hospitals' driveways. Body bags littering the floors of hospitals in third world countries.
All of that happened, but it went right over a lot of people's heads, and nobody talks about it anymore because it became such a sore and divisive topic and we're all glad it's over.
I remember well the video showing a whole column of military trucks transporting bodies out of the city of Bergamo, Italy, on March 19th, 2020. I took a screenshot because the magnitude of what this meant gave me shivers. It was one of those moments when the world seemed to stop for a minute and was changed forever like on 9/11, to me at least.
Ever since, I can't find much common ground for discussion with people claiming it was just a flu. You either acknowledge the difference or you don't.
So then why isn't it happening now? Why did Israel not fare better despite their much higher vaccination rates than Gaza without any vaccinations? It was never a pandemic and never anything more than a severe flu.
Yep, mock it all you like but it's because you can't explain it and it would make you too uncomfortable too acknowledge you don't know what you're talking about at all. Follow the school of fish into the net. Have at it.
Real people, citizen journalists documented empty hospitals and ERs with no activity while the mass media tried to sell you on "morgue trucks" lol. Trump got that whole ship sent to NYC and they never used it.
I walked by the morgue trucks, so no. You've been blinded by propaganda made by the same people who "document" alien encounters. If hospitals were actually empty the rates of healthcare worker burnout and subsequent shortage wouldn't have happened.
Maybe, outside the nursing homes that racked up tons of excess deaths due to Andrew Cuomo's policies and later cover-ups.
But at hospitals? I'm sure you can point out a few specific times and locations but on the whole, they simply were not overwhelmed with Covid deaths to the point where anything like "morgue trucks" were needed.
