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In the Asian Flu of 1957-58, they rejected lockdowns (2021)

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Re: In the Asian Flu of 1957-58, they rejected lockdowns (2021)

#71

Post by Vrondi »

mcpackieh wrote: post #62
esotericimpl wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint, there were no lockdowns. There was like the initial 6 weeks to stop the spread. I still went to the grocery store, not locked down, i still went to the park, not locked down. What lockdowns? please be specific. When people say lockdown, they mean: "I was forced to wear a mask when i went to the grocery store and i felt like a loser" Thats the whole issue.

Businesses were closed, schools were closed. I had to stop my weekly routine of spending Saturdays in the public library because the doors were locked and books were only being lended through the website. The only way to meet and socialize with people was online. Even city parks were "capacity limited", they put police tape around the duck pond because ducks became an attractive nuisance. I had to queue up around the…

How much of this went on was highly variable by state and county (sometimes even municipality). In some places, restaurants closed or became takeout only. In other places, they stayed open, but had to close any buffets. Schools and libraries closed or not different amounts of time in different places. Different universities took different degrees of action and distancing for different durations. Every single chain of stores took different measures (other than hanging up signs re-iterating whatever the state department of health said).

The differences were highly variable. I have family in rural areas whose lives changed not one iota unless they had to travel for business to more urban areas. I have more urban people in my circle who were locked into their residence almost all the time, working and school from home. And then, there are the grocery store, food delivery, and health workers, who were working until they dropped, short staffed, in a sea of anxiety, many getting Covid multiple times.

There was no single experience of lockdown status even within just the USA, let alone across countries.

Re: In the Asian Flu of 1957-58, they rejected lockdowns (2021)

#72

Post by toomanyrichies »

elcritch wrote: post #42
toomanyrichies wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never ask a barber if you need a haircut.

Wouldn't that apply to epidemiologists as well?

I mean, it applies to everyone. The more interesting question in this context is, which of the two groups does it apply to more?

If I have to put both the average CEO and the average epidemiologist on a spectrum of "more interested in my well-being" to "more interested in my pocketbook", I know where I'd put each one.

Re: In the Asian Flu of 1957-58, they rejected lockdowns (2021)

#73

Post by RansomStark »

somewhat_drunk wrote: post #17

This article immediately claims that the Asian Flu in question was far deadlier than COVID. This is categorically false. In fact, it's not even close. The article claims 116k US deaths attributable to the Asian flu. Meanwhile, there were 10x that number of excess US deaths during the COVID pandemic. https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid As others have pointed out, the AIER is a conservative think-tank. I…

You are comparing those numbers directly, but that's not how you compare those numbers.

First the population size, as per the article, was half what it is now. So you can either double the asian flu deaths or half the covid deaths to account for this.

That still leaves a huge gap, but this is where demographic analysis comes in.

Usually you see this as age adjusted deaths.

In this case, the population of the US has been aging for a long time so you would expect more deaths from covid than the Asian flu for an equally deadly virus.

The other demographic change that is important, especially when talking about covid is rates of obesity, which is something else that has grown over time in the US population.

That's a really long winded way to say you can't just compare raw numbers.

The article doesn't give an explanation of how they came to their conclusion, but if you take population size, age distribution, and obesity rates into account, I could see the adjusted numbers being close.

Re: In the Asian Flu of 1957-58, they rejected lockdowns (2021)

#74

Post by [deleted] »

esotericimpl wrote: post #35
mcpackieh wrote: post #7

Besides the economic harm and potential developmental harm induced by closing schools for kids, I think lockdowns did incalculable social harm to society. It gave huge swaths of the population a grudge against the system, a chip on their shoulder that won't go away anytime soon. It burned up goodwill and trust for experts and politicians (who generally didn't have much to spare in the first place.) And coupling this…

Counterpoint, there were no lockdowns. There was like the initial 6 weeks to stop the spread. I still went to the grocery store, not locked down, i still went to the park, not locked down. What lockdowns? please be specific. When people say lockdown, they mean: "I was forced to wear a mask when i went to the grocery store and i felt like a loser" Thats the whole issue.

[deleted]

Re: In the Asian Flu of 1957-58, they rejected lockdowns (2021)

#75

Post by mcpackieh »

Vrondi wrote: post #71
mcpackieh wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Businesses were closed, schools were closed. I had to stop my weekly routine of spending Saturdays in the public library because the doors were locked and books were only being lended through the website. The only way to meet and socialize with people was online. Even city parks were "capacity limited", they put police tape around the duck pond because ducks became an attractive nuisance. I had to queue up around the…

How much of this went on was highly variable by state and county (sometimes even municipality). In some places, restaurants closed or became takeout only. In other places, they stayed open, but had to close any buffets. Schools and libraries closed or not different amounts of time in different places. Different universities took different degrees of action and distancing for different durations. Every single chain of…

> How much of this went on was highly variable by state and county (sometimes even municipality).

Plenty of it I'm sure, but why does that matter? Local policies effected my life even if they weren't federal policies.

Re: In the Asian Flu of 1957-58, they rejected lockdowns (2021)

#76

Post by mikestew »

mcpackieh wrote: post #7

Besides the economic harm and potential developmental harm induced by closing schools for kids, I think lockdowns did incalculable social harm to society. It gave huge swaths of the population a grudge against the system, a chip on their shoulder that won't go away anytime soon. It burned up goodwill and trust for experts and politicians (who generally didn't have much to spare in the first place.) And coupling this…

It gave huge swaths of the population a grudge against the system, a chip on their shoulder that won't go away anytime soon.

It gave belligerent jackasses as stage upon which to perform. I suspect the grudge was long there, and the chip sat so long on their shoulder prior to the pandemic that it left a stain on many of their shirts. We should not cater to them.

It burned up goodwill and trust for experts and politicians (who generally didn't have much to spare in the first place.)

Again, just an excuse. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater because people that know far more about the subject than you do got a few things wrong, well, that's just being immature and/or supporting a narrative. We should not cater to them, either.

But at least we can agree that closing the schools was a bad idea.

Re: In the Asian Flu of 1957-58, they rejected lockdowns (2021)

#77

Post by elcritch »

w______roy wrote: post #69
elcritch wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't that apply to epidemiologists as well?

For a barber, more haircuts = more money. Trying to imagine what kind of relationship you think epidemiologists have with money? It's not like they get a nickel for every person they save from getting sick.

Not everything is purely about money. People are highly motivated by a sense of power or prominence, by a sense of belonging in the "correct group", and by a sense of being useful or productive at their profession. A barber as much as money will believe their haircut will make you look good.

Re: In the Asian Flu of 1957-58, they rejected lockdowns (2021)

#78

Post by mrguyorama »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #47
Tagbert wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There already was a chip on the shoulder of a large number of American and that has been fed and grown by certain media and social channels specifically to undermine trust in institutions and checks on power. The lockdown (that wasn't locked down) was just more fuel on that well-feed fire.

Exactly. Initially "lockdowns" (and I hesitate to even call them that here in the US, we didn't have literal lockdowns like China had where they welded doors shut on apartments) were seen as positive - "flatten the curve to help our healthcare workers and keep our hospitals from being overrun". Pretty soon, though, they started getting very negative framing from right-wing social media, etc.

>and I hesitate to even call them that here in the US, we didn't have literal lockdowns like China had where they welded doors shut on apartments

Were there even places that gave you a citation for being out "uneccessarily"? Every single "lockdown" I'm familiar with in the US was voluntary. There was a period where "non-essential" businesses were forced or encouraged to not operate, but even that still isn't a lockdown, and nobody was forced to stay in their home.

Re: In the Asian Flu of 1957-58, they rejected lockdowns (2021)

#79

Post by shapenamer »

esotericimpl wrote: post #35
mcpackieh wrote: post #7

Besides the economic harm and potential developmental harm induced by closing schools for kids, I think lockdowns did incalculable social harm to society. It gave huge swaths of the population a grudge against the system, a chip on their shoulder that won't go away anytime soon. It burned up goodwill and trust for experts and politicians (who generally didn't have much to spare in the first place.) And coupling this…

Counterpoint, there were no lockdowns. There was like the initial 6 weeks to stop the spread. I still went to the grocery store, not locked down, i still went to the park, not locked down. What lockdowns? please be specific. When people say lockdown, they mean: "I was forced to wear a mask when i went to the grocery store and i felt like a loser" Thats the whole issue.

half my friends lost their jobs because of the not-a-lockdown. The fact that we could still buy FOOD doesn't mean we weren't locked down. What a terrible take.

Well guys, we weren't physically barred in our homes and starved so we weren't locked down. Brilliant.

Re: In the Asian Flu of 1957-58, they rejected lockdowns (2021)

#80

Post by orwin »

Manuel_D wrote: post #70
somewhat_drunk wrote: post #17

This article immediately claims that the Asian Flu in question was far deadlier than COVID. This is categorically false. In fact, it's not even close. The article claims 116k US deaths attributable to the Asian flu. Meanwhile, there were 10x that number of excess US deaths during the COVID pandemic. https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid As others have pointed out, the AIER is a conservative think-tank. I…

So Ebola virus is not as deadly as COVID because fewer people have died from it? "Deadlier" can mean a whole host of things: infection fatality rate of a disease can be far higher even if the total deatg toll is lower, if fewer people contract the disease.

> So Ebola virus is not as deadly as COVID because fewer people have died from it?

Yes? That's the definition, no?

Cows are deadlier than sharks, cars are deadlier than planes, even though you're more likely to survive a cow attack or a car crash?

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