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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

#21

Post by chii »

clairity wrote: post #12
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…

don't give up. there's plenty of us who actually have assessed the risks and weighed them apropriately, using our own brains rather than relying on others to assuage our fears. almost none of the publicly pronounced mitigations have much mitigative effect. the most reasonable mitigation is sensible distancing when you're going to spend extended time with non-household members in tight quarters, but that's not big eno…

> 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.

Re: The pandemic has changed the shape of global happiness

#22

Post by nl »

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 is now). Lockdown (or vaccine) seems the only alternative in that case (or lots of deaths of course).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_South_Kor...

Re: The pandemic has changed the shape of global happiness

#23

Post by chii »

ekianjo wrote: post #15
MattGaiser wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which by the way is unique to the west The idea came from China and was considered unthinkable here when they did it. India also locked down. Friends in Ghana also told me that they locked down.

Japan never enforced any lock down and even actively encouraged people for months to travel in the midst of the pandemic. So far they did OK. Very limited number of infections and deaths.

and look at what happened : https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/10/japan-covid-ca...

Re: The pandemic has changed the shape of global happiness

#24

Post by lukebitts »

ekianjo wrote: post #14
wvenable wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lock down or not, people aren't going to go about their normal lives when hospitals are beyond capacity due to the pandemic. Maybe in that scenario, without corresponding lock downs, life wouldn't be as miserable but you don't know that.

Where exactly are hospitals beyond capacity ? Please provide sources for extraordinary claims.

How is saying hospitals are full extraordinary? My country is going through it right now, we just had our first death from someone who could not find a hospital bed. Im sure a google search on this subject would be very easy.

Re: The pandemic has changed the shape of global happiness

#25

Post by alsetmusic »

Phrodo_00 wrote: post #19

> It is as though Latin American countries had the wrong kind of happiness before 2020, says Mr Helliwell—a happiness sustained by people’s close social connections, not by high levels of social trust. Why is high social trust the 'correct' kind of happiness? I'm willing to give leeway and interpret this as the wrong kind of happiness for the situation, though.

>> It is as though Latin American countries had the wrong kind of happiness before 2020, says Mr Helliwell—a happiness sustained by people’s close social connections, not by high levels of social trust.

> Why is high social trust the 'correct' kind of happiness?

The very next sentence in TFA grabbed my attention before seeing this question:

> A global poll in 2019 found that only 52% of people in Latin America and the Caribbean thought a neighbour would return a wallet; just 41% thought a cop would. That is the lowest share of any region.

If social trust is a major component to your happiness and you distrust ~50% of the community and have even less trust for the institutions said to protect society, that might be the “wrong” type / source of happiness for your given environment.

Re: The pandemic has changed the shape of global happiness

#26

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

tobasq wrote: post #17
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…

Do you really imagine a USA that didn't lock down doing as well as South Korea and Taiwan? Look at our numbers with the lockdowns. The Asian countries were only able to do what they did because they were prepared, culturally and logistically, for a viral epidemic before one arrived.

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 Florida and Texas had lockdowns for different parts of their spikes. But the states in general were much more lax. And yet, they seemed to have fared similarly to California and New York - which had much more strict local and state-wide measures.

Re: The pandemic has changed the shape of global happiness

#27

Post by nl »

clairity wrote: post #12
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…

don't give up. there's plenty of us who actually have assessed the risks and weighed them apropriately, using our own brains rather than relying on others to assuage our fears. almost none of the publicly pronounced mitigations have much mitigative effect. the most reasonable mitigation is sensible distancing when you're going to spend extended time with non-household members in tight quarters, but that's not big eno…

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.

Re: The pandemic has changed the shape of global happiness

#28

Post by NorthOf33rd »

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…

Critiquing lockdown policy because you can’t live your “nomadic lifestyle” is selfish. Critiquing lockdown because there are better alternatives is not. You chose to frame your argument in the former.

Re: The pandemic has changed the shape of global happiness

#29

Post by nl »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #26
tobasq wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really imagine a USA that didn't lock down doing as well as South Korea and Taiwan? Look at our numbers with the lockdowns. The Asian countries were only able to do what they did because they were prepared, culturally and logistically, for a viral epidemic before one arrived.

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…

Exponential spread means small mistakes in containment are difficult to distinguish from an endemic infection - except in the time dimension.

You can see the difference pretty clearly looking at the time series.

But as soon as you open up again infections go up unless you have suppressed the virus completely. Countries that took it seriously did this.

Re: The pandemic has changed the shape of global happiness

#30

Post by nl »

ilikehurdles wrote: post #16
JSavageOne wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok I stand corrected and should've been more explicit. What I meant was that the east Asian countries hailed as role models - South Korea, Taiwan, etc - never had to resort to lockdowns. Meanwhile Europe is practically shut down, the U.S. had very harsh lockdowns, etc.

Taiwan has temperature checks to get anywhere and very effective contact tracing to segregate all potentially infectious individuals in quarantine. Coughs and fever, even if unrelated to covid, result in the individual having to spend some time in a hospital room. Its borders are almost fully closed to outsiders. Not only that, a culture of mask wearing has been normalized throughout east Asia for ages. Do you honest…

> 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

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