111–120 of 312 posts
The point of the lockdown was not to entirely stop the spread- that was obviously not happening. It was to slow the spread to avoid overwhelming hospitals.
It allowed us to reduce the lethality of COVID-19 by having more resources per sick person.
I think the lockdown concept as implemented in 2020 was a great illustration of the problem of scale. It's trivially true that if you as an individual avoid all contact with others during a flu season, you won't catch the flu. You can probably extend that to your family, maybe a bit further, but at a certain scale it just becomes impossible (and undesirable) because of individual variations in occupation, lifestyle,…
> You can probably extend that to your family, maybe a bit further, but at a certain scale it just becomes impossible (and undesirable) because of individual variations in occupation, lifestyle, risk and infinitely many other factors. And because someone has keep the wheels of society turning. There was no lockdown for supermarket cashiers. I don't understand what point you tried to make. There were naturally essenti…
There are two variables here. How infectious the disease is and which percentage of the population can isolate themselves at home without society breaking down.
If everybody stays home you don't have hospitals, you don't have electricity, nobody picks up the garbage, and people will go hungry. Needless to say, that doesn't work. So what percentage of people still need to go to work? And it turns out you need a lot of people to work. From elderly care to daycare, from hospitals to supermarkets and their entire supply chain. And those people will inevitably get sick and infect their family and so the spread continues.
And how infectious is covid? Very, and variants increasingly so.
Which means you can use measures to slow down a disease like covid, but you have no chance of stopping it completely. And that's something some governments refused to accept, and they enacted a ton of erratic and ineffective countermeasures in a desperate attempt to do something impossible, instead of taking a more measured approach focused on slowing down the spread and increasing hospital capacity.
Some people will insist that government policy was in fact reasonable and measured, but it really wasn't. Deutsche Bahn still required masking in January. This year. 2023. I kid you not. It's totally absurd.
There's always pros and cons. In retrospect, it's easier to be critical than when you actually have to deal with the crisis.
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…
> Whereas lockdowns in the Covid-19 case might have contributed to a lengthening of the crisis by delaying herd immunity The point of the lockdown was not to entirely stop the spread- that was obviously not happening. It was to slow the spread to avoid overwhelming hospitals. It allowed us to reduce the lethality of COVID-19 by having more resources per sick person.
> The American Institute for Economic Research educates people on the value of personal freedom, free enterprise, property rights, limited government, and sound money Saved some of you a click hopefully
Regardless of everything else, I don't think lockdowns could have ever been an option in a pre-internet society or even a pre-smartphone, pre-social-media society. So, say, before 2007 or so.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I started shilling for the Marxist-Leninist Institute of Vkou that promoted cake for everyone, equality, unity and prosperity, self-determination and social wellbeing, would you be concerned about any of those things separately, together, or would you just dismiss me out of hand, because you think you know where that road leads? I think I know where the road of 'personal freedom, free enterprise, property rights,…
Marxist-Leninists often have fair and valid critique of society. Hearing them out is valuable even if you (like myself) find yourself opposed to many of their values and proposals.