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The Virus Changed. Now We Must ‘Get to Zero’ or Face Catastrophe

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Re: The Virus Changed. Now We Must ‘Get to Zero’ or Face Catastrophe

#231

Post by lancewiggs »

lamontcg wrote: post #210
eqdw wrote: post #192

This author appears to be completely unaware that, in the US anyway, the progress of the pandemic has been completely and totally disconnected from all control measures. San Francisco, where I'm told (and believe, based on having lived there) that they had very strict lockdown measures: https://www.sfdph.org/dph/alerts/coronavirus.asp * Population: ~900,000 * Total Cases: 31,111 (3,457 / 100k) * Total Deaths: 324 (36…

Nowhere in the US has really had harsh lockdown measures. SF also has density issues that will drive up the r0 of the virus. While the widely quoted r0 of the virus is around 3.0, the r0 in NYC at the start of the outbreak was estimated to be 5.0 (You could argue about if that was really the r(t) and not r0, but I'm not considering time-dependence or the reaction to the virus, but the actual starting reproduction num…

Density is not an issue - just stay inside. Overcrowding per household is a big issue.

Re: The Virus Changed. Now We Must ‘Get to Zero’ or Face Catastrophe

#232

Post by lancewiggs »

zpeti wrote: post #12

China and Vietnam get the virus under control by using centralised quarantines. I wonder how many people supporting the sentiments of this article would be ok with someone arriving at their doorstep, taking you to a prison basically whether you agree or not, and quaranteening you there for at least 10 days with other covid people. Perhaps they also take your family too, in case they are also infected. Are you willing…

Exactly what we have in NZ right now. But it’s not prison (which is emotional language at best). Quarantining is done in nice hotels, and people are treated well. Special accommodations are even made for extended family groups.

Re: The Virus Changed. Now We Must ‘Get to Zero’ or Face Catastrophe

#233

Post by username90 »

anotherevan wrote: post #227

Can people in the northern hemisphere stop banging on that the reason it is so easy for us to get a handle on COVID in Australia is because it is summer. We eliminated COVID in Melbourne during winter with wearing masks and real lockdowns. It was not easy. It required a huge effort of societal and political will and cooperation. It involved following the science. Stop blaming the weather.

Does Australia even have winters? I mean, it never gets cold in Melbourne. Your winter is close to my summer.

Re: The Virus Changed. Now We Must ‘Get to Zero’ or Face Catastrophe

#234

Post by cudgy »

anotherevan wrote: post #218
polote wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lockdowns work. End of story This is not true. Hard lockdown that people follow seems to work. But lowdown only doesn't work. 1. Not all lockdown are equal, look at Germany how long they have a been in a soft lockdown so that death can decrease? like 2 months? Not sure at this point this is due to lockdown 2. If people don't follow the order it doesn't work, Peru one of the toughest and longest lockdown but yet als…

> This is not true. Hard lockdown that people follow seems to work. But lowdown only doesn't work. As a fellow Melbournite I will clarify: Real lockdowns work. End of story.

End of what story?

Most people cannot make money while locked down. Who pays their bills? Are they expected to burn through all savings to become destitute enough to qualify for aid? Are landlords and mortgage holders supposed to deal without any revenue?

Is caging up your citizens to avoid a disease that has a miniscule chance of death (for all but its oldest citizens) really necessary? Is it ok to saddle future generations with government debt to pay for these lockdowns?

There are many “stories” to tell here.

Re: The Virus Changed. Now We Must ‘Get to Zero’ or Face Catastrophe

#235

Post by cudgy »

threeseed wrote: post #110
sto_hristo wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australia is big and sparely populated compared to other countries that implemented full lockdowns. Also, it's summer down there, with heat waves, etc. All of this diminishes virus' ability to spread. It's very situational. Australia is not doing anything more special than other countries. You gotta look into the meaning of these numbers and just the value. Lockdowns do work, technically speaking, but not in the long…

1. 71% of Australians live in a handful of cities each of which has very high density relative to the rest of the world. 2. Lockdowns occurred during winter. 3. Australia has effectively eliminated COVID-19 and by having so few cases it allows for targeted lockdowns to work over the long-term e.g. Perth just had 1 case today and is having a short 5-day lockdown - their first in 10 months.

Uh ... a 5 day lockdown due to 1 case per day in a city with over 2 million people! Talk about an overreaction.

Re: The Virus Changed. Now We Must ‘Get to Zero’ or Face Catastrophe

#236

Post by flukus »

icelancer wrote: post #112
mkl wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible to close borders without being on an island. I (in NZ) don't think the the island factor is essential. The USA has more active military personnel than almost any other country, enough to make closing borders pretty easy compared with many other places.

>> I (in NZ) don't think the the island factor is essential. Why are the countries consistently being cited for doing good jobs in this thread seem to be island nations? Exclude AUS and NZ from the analysis and there are very few landlocked countries doing a good job without very authoritarian measures that are unlikely to be legal in the countries doing poorly.

> Why are the countries consistently being cited for doing good jobs in this thread seem to be island nations?

Because these are western english speaking nations with a similar culture that have people posting on HN.

Re: The Virus Changed. Now We Must ‘Get to Zero’ or Face Catastrophe

#237

Post by __blockcipher__ »

Jestar342 wrote: post #228
__blockcipher__ wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are closer to pop-sci articles than proper papers. Please read everything Macintyre ever published on the topic of masking in healthcare works before 2020. Start with this one: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4420971/ Linking me a bunch of public health websites isn’t convincing because these organizations don’t actually maintain epistemiological rigor, they just parrot whatever the dogma is. The o…

Literally all of them link scientific papers, if you'd care to read. And it's not "self-infection" that masking is a protection of. Nobody has claimed that. You wear a mask to protect those around you, and they wear their's to protect you. Though it figures you are obsessed with the self and have no regard for the other.

No studies exist of infection to others for the obvious reason (too hard to track accurately). If you had read any of the literature you would know this.

Re: The Virus Changed. Now We Must ‘Get to Zero’ or Face Catastrophe

#238

Post by flukus »

baxtr wrote: post #190
stonith wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s basically like saying the state of New York could have been able to drive COVID down to zero while other states had it exploding. This is exactly what Western Australia did. The Australian response was not nationally coordinated and each state has been doing their own thing. They have land borders between each other and yet the Victorian outbreak didn't spread to either NSW or SA because they implemented borde…

I wasn’t aware of that. I think it was the right call. Still, compare the population density of WA to Central Europe. It’s probably 2 orders higher.

Then compare the Queensland-NSW border or the Victoria-NSW border, probably comparable with most European borders or at least within 1 order of magnitude. Both borders were closed (with exceptions) at various times to contain outbreaks to one state. If we loosen up the definition of country then these are Western countries that aren't island nations with zero covid.

It shouldn't also be noted that the borders don't have to be hermetically sealed. As long as cross border contamination is minimized other tools (contact tracing) can deal with it.

Re: The Virus Changed. Now We Must ‘Get to Zero’ or Face Catastrophe

#239

Post by flukus »

username90 wrote: post #233
anotherevan wrote: post #227

Can people in the northern hemisphere stop banging on that the reason it is so easy for us to get a handle on COVID in Australia is because it is summer. We eliminated COVID in Melbourne during winter with wearing masks and real lockdowns. It was not easy. It required a huge effort of societal and political will and cooperation. It involved following the science. Stop blaming the weather.

Does Australia even have winters? I mean, it never gets cold in Melbourne. Your winter is close to my summer.

It gets cold enough that people spend much more time congregating inside, that's all that matters to the virus.

Re: The Virus Changed. Now We Must ‘Get to Zero’ or Face Catastrophe

#240

Post by croes »

__blockcipher__ wrote: post #224
croes wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it infects children more easily.

What’s your point? As I said: > over the long run the set of all COVID-19-naive individuals becomes dominated by the very young (infants/toddlers), who have essentially zero risk of COVID-19 mortality.

"Babies under 1 year old and children with certain underlying conditions may be more likely to have severe illness from COVID-19." Zero risk?
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