Easy to dismiss him because of his wealth or other prejudices you may have of him. "Free America Now" raises an incredibly important debate that all lockdown-ridden countries should be having. Were lockdowns constitutional? Were lockdowns effective? Could other measured responses have achieved similar outcomes?
Were lockdowns done in vain? And have we set a dangerous precedent?
Bunch of questions. Don't flame him or me. Just participate in the debate.
"Just participate in the debate" is the kind of nonsensical rhetoric Creationists use to push their religious beliefs into science education. There is no debate. There are no questions. The only dangerous precedent we're setting is one of ignoring the expert epidemiologists tasked with protecting the public.
To summarize, during the 1918 flu pandemic, American cities that implemented early and extensive non-medical measures (including quarantines) suffered no additional adverse economic effects due to implementing those measures when compared with cities that implemented measures late or not at all.
Again, to summarize, American Samoa and New Caledonia succeeded in preventing even a single death from the 1918 influenza through effective quarantines.
Yes. Courts have historically granted a lot of deference to the government in crisis situations. Also, "the Constitution is not a suicide pact" [0]
> Were lockdowns effective?
Yes. In pretty much every region, the flattening of new cases lined up exactly with the beginning of lockdown measures + incubation time, and this was also captured by unofficial measurements like smart thermometer data: [1]
> Could other measured responses have achieved similar outcomes?
Probably not. The aforementioned thermometer data showed no drop in fevers from the early half-measures like banning large gatherings, effectiveness was only from the lockdowns.
Lockdowns were the wrong solution, imo. I think we've underestimated the spread pre-lockdown and the spread during lockdown (grocery stores etc.). We'll know once broad antibody tests are administered. But if the virus has already spread to 30, 40, heck 50 percent of the population, then what the heck are we doing in lockdown...
So, um, no, we are nowhere near the 50 percent, at least according to any data we might have. And, depending which expert do you heed and what is the definition of "herd immunity" they're after, we need 70%, 90% or 95% before this is over.
50-66% is most likely, and perhaps less. Estimates of R0 are mostly in the range of 2.0-2.5.
50% would lower a 2.0 R0 to 1.0. 66% would lower a 2.5 R0 to 1.0. And this ignores that we may have permanently changed behaviors (e.g. handshakes) that facilitate spread, so we may not even need this fraction to curb tramission.
New York City is presently somewhere past 23%, so that's a big chunk of the way to a 1.0 Rt without controls.
This is again missing the point. You cannot assume such things when lives are at risk. From the point of view of a leader, they knew the following:
- There is a deadly virus out there that is spreading very quickly.
- People who are not showing symptoms are spreading it.
- Community transmission has started
Given these data points, if one leader decided to lockdown sooner and another decided to wait it out, I think it is fair to say that the leader who picked lockdown made the right decision. Yes, if you add an additional data point that 50% of population is already infected, sure, you could argue that maybe it is doing more harm than good. But there is no evidence for this, and this almost certainly was not true when the lockdown decision was made in Washington and California.
What we were trying to do was to get the portion of the population that doesn't take this seriously to actually wash their hands, wear a mask (properly) in public to reduce their viral shedding and limit their trips out as well.
The why, as Washington State Governor Jay Inslee said, "The penalties are you might be killing your grandfather if you don't do it."
It's innocent others; our grandparents, those with known compromised health conditions, and those, even young and likely uninsured, with unknown health conditions, that are being saved.
Putting this another way, I don't care if someone is a smoker in isolation. That's their choice. I care when it spreads and affects others, including myself. The balance of freedom must be considered when conflicts exist, with a bias towards preventing tragedy of the commons.
> But if the virus has already spread to 30, 40, heck 50 percent of the population
_If_ is the key part of this sentence. We simply do not know, which is why - as you point out - testing is key!
If we were strict on lock-down and on testing, we can be very effective with this:
After a few (say 6 or 8) weeks if lock-down we can know with high likelihood who is and who is not sick. Now test all the sick people (and their friends), and start testing the general public for anti-bodies. Then start tracing any new infections.
That requires folks following the lock-down and health measures and the mass availability of virus and anti-body tests.
In addition, there's little doubt that the infection has spread far more widely in NYC area than elsewhere. The covid-19 death rate per capita in NYC is 3 to 20 times higher other areas of the U.S. So even if NYC area had 20% who had been infected, that would not mean the rest of the country was anywhere close to that; other areas would not be close to NYC infection rate unless there death rates were similar.
As I see it, lockdowns are not effective and were a massive mistake. You may find this epidemiologist's perspective to be interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfN2JWifLCY
From looking at the current infection graphs Sweden is about to have a very bad time. When 99% of epidemiologists are saying one thing and you have to seek out a contrarion ask yourself if you're really being helpful or just trying to confirm your existing beliefs.
People have been saying that about Sweden for about 2 months now yet we still don't see any catastrophe happening there. Their hospitals are doing just fine, they aren't overwhelmed and there is no uncontrollable mortality. Why would Sweden suddenly do much worst now? It's curve has flattened and they are even closing emergency ICUs they setup but never had to use.
Sweden has a pop of about 10 mil, Switzerland has a pop of about 8.5 mil. Sweden is projected to have about 10,000 deaths, Switzerland under 2,000; accounting for their population differences, Sweden could have avoided 8,000 deaths if they had locked down. 8000! source is IHME, https://covid19.healthdata.org/sweden, https://covid19.healthdata.org/switzerland. This also applies to the nordic countries like Denmark, Finland, Norway as compared to Sweden too.
Sweden did start much more slowly that switzerland but they clearly are vastly underperforming in saving their citizens.
The death rate in Sweden is comparatively high but it is too simple to just blame it on their avoidance of a lockdown.
You took Switzerland as an example, but if you would have taken Belgium, Sweden would do actually very well. Still, Belgium took quite strict lockdown measures and in a pretty early stage.
What really seems to have had a significant result on keeping the death rate down, is testing: countries like Germany and Switzerland are testing often and early and have done so already in an early stage of the outbreak. This way they were able to treat patients early and to protect vulnerable patients against others in their surrounding that were infected.
That is an important question to ask, but I think in this case the answer is that it's helpful.
That other 99% really don't seem to know for sure lockdowns are effective; the only arguments I've ever seen them present are "my model says they're effective" or "it would be strange in principle if they weren't". (Some laypeople draw dishonest comparisons to control measures for the Spanish Flu, but epidemiologists know that these measures didn't include orders to stay at home or close all businesses.)
Sweden has about 10 times more deaths than their neighbours. Oh and this is with 80% of the population in VOLUNTARY lockdown, their bars and restaurants are open sure but they're empty.
The US would probably be at over a million deaths by now if life had continued normally without lockdowns.
Norway doesn't count its deaths in the same way Sweden does and in any case Sweden's hospitals are not getting close to being overrun. Remember, curve flattening isn't about avoiding infections it's about spreading our rhe infection rates to allow the healthcare system to better cope. Also, Sweden is doing better than a lot of locked down countries so in any cade it's weird to only compare them to their immediate neighbors. Québec is similar to Sweden in a lot of ways but still has a higher mortality rate even if the province got hit a lot later than Sweden did
Audio/video chat is atrocious for relationship building.
- There's the speed of sound/light delay.
- You lose all the physiological feedback: Body language, tone, facial expression.
- The barrier to start a conversation is way higher too. Some would argue that is good.
- You cannot go for a walk with a peer.
Briza... the air cooler company? Nope! Briza, the technology startup connecting small businesses, insurance brokers and carriers in the buying of commercial insurance -- initially focused on the US market. We’re a seed-stage company headquartered in Toronto, Canada.
The Pickering plant is only about 3 km from the city of Toronto's border. While it was selected in the 60s as a relatively remote site, it's now a heavily urbanized area considered part of Greater Toronto.
I was wondering about this today. How granular are the 'zones' used for these alerts? Is it just by political boundary? For something like Pickering, it would be useful to have a more geographical zone -- including parts of the US. Could the alert be sent out and limited to cell towers within a selected zone? Is the current system using tower location?
They have the ability to geotarget them, but fail at it regularly.
From what I understood from spectrum auctions, Gatineau Quebec is a part of the Ottawa area, so they're probably a part of Ontario side when it comes to cell system back-end.
This can't be answered with any conviction. By that logic, we can be apply this infinitely many times: from the aliens perspective, they are also not aware of other aliens that know about their existence
Insurance technology startup connecting carriers, agents and small businesses in the placement of insurance. Our stack includes Node.js, Typescript, ES2019.
Were lockdowns done in vain? And have we set a dangerous precedent?
Bunch of questions. Don't flame him or me. Just participate in the debate.