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The pandemic has changed the shape of global happiness

economist.com

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Re: The pandemic has changed the shape of global happiness

#61

Post by JSavageOne »

nl wrote: post #22
JSavageOne wrote: post #4

The most annoying thing to me is that when one critiques lockdown policy (which by the way is unique to the west, Korea for example never had a lockdown [1]), one is labeled as selfish, anti-science, and lumped into the Trump-supporting right wing camp. It feels like having an honest discussion isn't even possible without being downvote bombed to the point where your comment gets censored (especially on extremely one…

Korea (and the other countries mentioned) reacted hard and strongly at the start of the pandemic, and kept numbers low. In Korea the worst day had just over 1000 new cases in the whole country. They had forced quarantine for those infected and very strong (legally enforced) contract tracing[1]. Meanwhile in the US and Europe they seem to have abandoned contact tracing completely (unsurprising given how widely spread…

It's sad that the U.S/Europe is not capable of implementing contact tracing. I don't want to be spied on by Big Brother more than anyone else, but I'll take that over the government telling me I'm not allowed to leave my house.

Re: The pandemic has changed the shape of global happiness

#62

Post by wvenable »

JSavageOne wrote: post #59
wvenable wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

South Korea has had a relatively small number of COVID cases. Kindergartens, schools, universities, cinemas, gyms were closed soon after the outbreak with schools and universities having online classes. You're mixing up cause and effect. South Korea has definitely considered lock down measures as cased increased but so far they haven't needed to. Not only is hospital overcapacity location-dependent but so have been t…

My point was that lockdowns aren't necessary, and rather than jumping to lockdown, we should be looking to learn from the countries that handled the pandemic better than us. In America the dialogue basically seems to just be "omg cases are rising? SHUT DOWN EVERYTHING". Not enough attention is put on the million other less destructive measures that can be taken to reduce the spread. Right now for example I'm in a thi…

> In America the dialogue basically seems to just be "omg cases are rising? SHUT DOWN EVERYTHING".

I have relatives that live in Florida (in fact, I was Florida the day the pandemic was declared). And just a few months ago Florida just basically declared the pandemic is over -- no shut down, no mandatory masks, and the social distancing signs and materials gone.

A shut down is a big stick that's needed once the exponential growth starts returning and all signs are that things are going to get overwhelmed. In this US, this is a regular issue.

You say your point isn't the lockdowns aren't necessary but now it really isn't clear what your saying. If the point is the US is, in general, incompetent at this then I wouldn't disagree. But I'd argue your focus on lock downs is misplaced rather than everyone else's. The same people who don't want lock downs also don't want all those million other less destructive measures. And people who may want lock downs also want those million other less destructive measures.

Re: The pandemic has changed the shape of global happiness

#63

Post by chii »

rhino369 wrote: post #50
chii wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> didn't really have any substantive effect it did, but the effort was not sustained, nor done consistently enough in the USA to have had return on the investment/cost. I would argue that a bigger, more stringent lockdown, for at least 1-2 months, would have produced vastly better results. It's not like you can half-mitigate the pandemic with a half-lockdown.

Lockdowns will only work long term if they are used to reduce the level of infection to a level that can be controlled by other means (testing, tracking, quarantine, and social distancing). US and European public health agencies don't seem up to that task. You could lockdown until US numbers are literally 0 and we'd just grow exponentially again after we got the first case from incoming visitor. And I don't think a 2…

because you specified large - that's a self defeating condition. You lock down before it gets large - otherwise, being large means you can no longer trace/track and quarantine.

Australia had an outbreak in melbourne that came from a leak in hotel quarantine, and sydney had a similar leak. There was large scale lockdown in melb (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Australia...) which lasted 4 months - it was brutal for everyone, but it kept the outbreak from spreading from around 7000 cases. You can make similar observations for sydney.

Therefore, the question of whether lockdowns work for large outbreaks has the implied assumption that you only lockdown after the outbreak is large, and thus is a loaded question. The lockdown needs to look like an overreaction after the fact, or it would not have helped.

Re: The pandemic has changed the shape of global happiness

#64

Post by chii »

rhino369 wrote: post #46
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It certainly DOES appear that when lockdowns go in place in a state or country, the new cases start to go down - usually dramatically. At this point, we probably have well over 100 examples of this. I'm interested if there are any counter examples. Are there? But on the same hand, there's not any controlled experiments going on. Has this actually been statistically proven? For example, major populations centers in Fl…

I don't think you need much evidence to believe that lockdowns are temporarily effective. But I'd be curious to see evidence on whether they are effective at reducing overall infections over a longer period. Because it seems like they just delay (for only a matter of weeks) what is going to happen anyway. Most of the United States really had two significant waves. NY and other early hotspots never had the summer peak…

it evened out because people who were not in lockdown states got infected, and those got transmitted to the states/cities that had been in lockdown but subsequently opened up. In other words, the lockdowns are half-assed.

Re: The pandemic has changed the shape of global happiness

#65

Post by chii »

JSavageOne wrote: post #54
NorthOf33rd wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would that not be possible in America? When the leader of the country during the pandemic was explicitly antimask? You can’t rewrite history with “logic.”

The U.S. is a democracy, not a dictatorship. The president can only do so much. If there's a problem with the politicians, they need to be replaced. If there's a problem with the system, that needs to be fixed. Just saying "it's not possible in America" is not constructive or useful.

I would examine the texas blackout as an example of why such problem persists in the US. There's no incentive, during good times, to prepare a system to help during black swan events. When the black swan event occur, the costs are borne by those who suffer it. After the closure of the event, life goes back to "normal" - and the cycle would repeat.

Re: The pandemic has changed the shape of global happiness

#66

Post by chii »

siquick wrote: post #47
nl wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you honestly, honestly believe that Americans or Europeans at any level would have been able to transition to and adhere to such strict restrictions? Australia adhered to much stronger restrictions. See https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-54654646

It's also much easier to close both country borders and interstate borders here. That's the main reason we've been successful along with people's general willingness to follow rules here.

whilst it's true that australia's state borders are much more easily monitored, if people truly wanted to cross, they don't have to go thru major roads.

I think the willingness to follow rules is a much more important trait than the ease with which roads could be closed.

The US has many roads between states and it is indeed impractical to close them. But it would not be impractical to ask every citizen to not travel. But how many would've heeded that call?

Re: The pandemic has changed the shape of global happiness

#67

Post by nl »

clairity wrote: post #42
nl wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lockdowns work, but they have to be hard and you can't stop until you have suppressed the virus. Victoria, Australia was a great example: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-54654646 Opening up before suppression without strong contact tracing (or vaccine) just seems like the worst of both worlds: you have the horrible effects of a lockdown, and the knowledge it's just going to come back.

there’s no concrete evidence that lockdowns themselves were the principle mitigative effect, because so many different mitigations were thrown at it in hopes at least one of them worked. more likely is the general reduction in social contact brought on by uncertainty and amorphous (and media-fueled) fear and anxiety, i.e., social distancing. perhaps in an ideal world, your scenario may have proven effective, but we d…

The mathematical models of a lockdown migration perfectly matches what what happened in Victoria. It's almost a perfect natural experiment in that regard.

Parameterize an epidemic model with the leakage we saw measured in the Victorian lockdown and you get the same pattern.

Re: The pandemic has changed the shape of global happiness

#68

Post by nonford150 »

JSavageOne wrote: post #61
nl wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Korea (and the other countries mentioned) reacted hard and strongly at the start of the pandemic, and kept numbers low. In Korea the worst day had just over 1000 new cases in the whole country. They had forced quarantine for those infected and very strong (legally enforced) contract tracing[1]. Meanwhile in the US and Europe they seem to have abandoned contact tracing completely (unsurprising given how widely spread…

It's sad that the U.S/Europe is not capable of implementing contact tracing. I don't want to be spied on by Big Brother more than anyone else, but I'll take that over the government telling me I'm not allowed to leave my house.

Maybe people just want the freedom to make their own decisions while taking proper precautions.

Lockdowns in the US haven’t had any positive outcomes versus the freedom to live with masks and social distancing.

Re: The pandemic has changed the shape of global happiness

#69

Post by imartin2k »

throwitaway1235 wrote: post #49

Anyone else surprised with how effective American media has been in burying the large anti-lockdown protests throughout Europe? If you're an average American discouraged by some of the more draconian health measures here, you'd feel pretty isolated and hopeless, not knowing how much solidarity exists throughout the world.

They were not really “large”.

Re: The pandemic has changed the shape of global happiness

#70

Post by UncleMeat »

JSavageOne wrote: post #59
wvenable wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

South Korea has had a relatively small number of COVID cases. Kindergartens, schools, universities, cinemas, gyms were closed soon after the outbreak with schools and universities having online classes. You're mixing up cause and effect. South Korea has definitely considered lock down measures as cased increased but so far they haven't needed to. Not only is hospital overcapacity location-dependent but so have been t…

My point was that lockdowns aren't necessary, and rather than jumping to lockdown, we should be looking to learn from the countries that handled the pandemic better than us. In America the dialogue basically seems to just be "omg cases are rising? SHUT DOWN EVERYTHING". Not enough attention is put on the million other less destructive measures that can be taken to reduce the spread. Right now for example I'm in a thi…

But we aren’t in shut down everything mode. Basically everything, including indoor dining, has been open for months. Pretty much the only thing that is still locked down is schools.
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