Vagal cholinergic denervation of the gastric mucosa in Long-COVID-19

Sort of like, okay, if I have a hundred water balloons and I dropped fifty of those water balloons off the top of my house growing up, and fifty off the top of the Empire State building, would the latter always be that much worse? Just a few off the first and I can guess the outcome, and let's call that a control group, but the second, who knows... sure you might get lucky and knock one or two people out (or get a couple of good people showing results or seeming connections you want in a study) but you probably need more than a few to prove it isn't just a fluke. ;) Okay, messing around with the water balloons. Not with the study thing.

> Lockdowns on the other hand provided no measurable benefit whatsoever

If only by “measurable” you set a bar to mean that we would require a parallel universe where no lockdowns were in place, especially in the cold-weather, low sunlight climates.

Heh well of course I don't deny that there's a dramatic decrease in pleasure. But I don't think that's on the same order as the mortality / morbidity that comes from a mishandled pandemic.

> If only by “measurable” you set a bar to mean that we would require a parallel universe where no lockdowns were in place, especially in the cold-weather, low sunlight climates.

Not at all - there are plenty enough data to draw solid conclusions, as many reputable scientists have. And while it's true that many places in the world that eschewed lockdowns were tropical and have less developed economies, there was also a wide variety of policies in place in temperate regions, from the many parts of the USA which closed schools for a year, to the many more moderate policies in Europe, to Sweden, which had no lockdown at all.

I believe the data available are sufficient to draw a conclusion, and I think it's beyond dispute that, if you do find the data to be sufficient, the only plausible conclusion is that lockdowns were associated with increased incidence of adverse outcomes, with no measurable benefit.

Not only did lockdowns not prevent spread of the virus, but they increased spread between generations within households, which in turn was a direct cause of morbidity and mortality.

I understand if the argument is about civic duty or something, but on the actual data, I just don't think there's remaining room for reasonable dispute. It's clear.

I think a darker possibility also looms: that there is ongoing astroturfing across the internet in defense of what turned out to be ludicrous policies.

In real life, there seem to be so few people who stand by lockdowns in the face of all the data that's now available. Vanishingly few serious epidemiologists continue to contend that lockdowns were helpful. All five of the big five medical schools have published multiple papers concluding that lockdowns were more harmful than helpful.

So what, are these people just chronically online and uninformed? I mean, we're on HN, where there's typically a more informed and data-driven conversation. What makes this topic different?