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from the lockdowns-were-supposed-to-be-just-one-part-of-defense-at-depth dept.
Economists warn of 'widespread costs' from lockdown:
Blanket restrictions on economic activity should be lifted and replaced with measures targeted specifically at groups most at risk, say economists.
[...] They argue that while the extent to which the lockdown contributed to a subsequent slowing in the rate of new infections and deaths is not easy to estimate precisely, it seems clear that it did contribute to these public health objectives.
However, they say it is "very far from clear" whether keeping such tight restrictions in place for three months until the end of June when they began to be lifted was warranted, given the large costs. They say that the costs of carrying on with such a lockdown are likely to have become significantly greater than its benefits.
Debate over the global dilemma continues.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday July 30 2020, @03:15PM (19 children)
You're idiot. If everybody stays at home in quarantine two weeks, then everybody who is not seek can get out. During that time, whoever is sick can get treated in isolation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday July 30 2020, @03:38PM (9 children)
You need to not call others idiots when your solution is to eradicate the virus from $region and call everything solved. It doesn't solve anything. Not at all. It merely postpones it. And not for very long given the ease of contagion of this particular virus.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday July 30 2020, @04:08PM (7 children)
Probably needed to be clearer.
Theoretically**, one could eradicate the virus in an area by going a hard lockdown. It is idiotic to come with examples of non-hard lockdown that fail to eradicate it (as the comment I replied to did).
Practically, one needs only to keep it so that:
1. the impact on the health care system manage to cope with the load; and
2. to the best possible, avoid deaths die to the disease.
Both can be achieved without hard lockdown, as long as common-sense infection countermeasures are followed in a disciplined way.
Many countries managed to do it even without a lockdown, have South Korea as an example [worldometers.info] (daily cases currently under 100, without a lockdown [alarabiya.net]; but of course also without "It will go away. Could you look into drinking bleach? Masks are unpatriotic and brake mah liberty")
---
Practically, it has been done by New Zealand.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday July 30 2020, @04:13PM (6 children)
While I appreciate that is a more thorough answer, it still neglects the undeniable fact that any eradication of a virus this easy to spread is going to be so extremely short-lived as to be pointless unless it's also accompanied by universal disbursement of an effective anti-viral medication, vaccine, or other avenue to immunity.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday July 30 2020, @04:33PM (5 children)
Eradication is hard and will work only in special circumstances, yes.
Managing the covid pandemic with can be done with reasonable cost, but it does require a good plan and discipline (the South Korean example).
In the absence of those two, economists can whinge all they want, there will more costs related to the pandemic they can't even imagine [soylentnews.org], much less quantify.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday July 30 2020, @05:03PM (4 children)
There are costs to either alternative that people can't imagine. Anyone who tells you they fully understand the economy is a damned liar and anyone who tells you they can predict anything beyond some very basic influences on it is lying and wants something from you. The shit these guys are saying is extremely basic and well proven. That doesn't guarantee they're correct but it makes it a hell of a lot more likely than the rebuttal.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2020, @08:58PM (3 children)
Well, *you* certainly seem to spend a great deal of time expressing how fully *you* understand the economy the moment anyone expresses their own understanding of the slightest subset of it.
So, doctor, thyself and so on.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday July 31 2020, @03:38AM (2 children)
I do understand the fundamentals fairly well, yes. And they are the most fundamental driving forces of the economy, so understanding them well and basing your predictions on them may land you with egg on your face occasionally but at least not for spouting shit based on things you don't remotely understand. Which is what most of the folks chipping in on this are doing, both here and elsewhere.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @05:31AM (1 child)
See? This is why we need the #fakenews moderation!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday July 31 2020, @11:42AM
Okay, you earned that upmod. *hat tip*
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Friday July 31 2020, @12:48PM
It is a local, temporary solution, which has to be butressed with travel restrictions and testing and contact tracing for the few cases that didn't quite get eradicated.
Put enough local solutions together and you'll achieve a wide-area solution.
-- hendrik
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2020, @04:01PM (6 children)
> If everybody stays at home in quarantine two weeks
Are you a physicist? We are not talking spherical cows here, and many people can't stay at home no matter how strict the lockdown measures put in place. For just one obvious example, health care workers have to take a break, they can't stay in their hospital/nursing-facility for two weeks.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday July 30 2020, @04:28PM (4 children)
By formal education.
They don't need to (my fault, should have made clear that's totally a "thought experiment" to show that one doesn't need years-and-years).
New Zealand managed to do eradication with lockdown.
South Korea managed to get an upper hand an keep the infection under control (currently new daily infections steady at around 100) without lockdown - just applying well thought countermeasures early and with a disciplined population.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2020, @08:25PM (3 children)
Problem with arguing on SoylentNews,
You might be arguing with an actual rocket scientist, or brain surgeon. [dailymotion.com]
"It's not exactly brain surgery, you know."
"Not exactly rocket science, is it?"
So, Buzzard, what do you do?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday July 31 2020, @03:40AM (2 children)
As little as possible unless it involves fishing. Why?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @04:24AM (1 child)
Just gauging that intellectual capability.
A 3 out of 10 on the Morty scale.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday July 31 2020, @11:46AM
I'm good enough at what I do to rarely have to do any of it to make ends meet. So that's exactly what I do, make ends meet and keep the rest of my time for myself.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Friday July 31 2020, @12:18PM
As far as I know, the health care workers in Toronto where there was a SARS outbreak *did* stay in quarantine on hospital grounds 24 hours a day, treating patients while they were still capable of doing so competently.
They squashed the outbreak completely, but not without some deaths.
Afterward, they received the highest honour Canada has to bestow for courage in the face of life-threatening danger -- one normally bestowed only in military personnel.
-- hendrik
(Score: 2) by slinches on Thursday July 30 2020, @04:22PM (1 child)
For one, it isn't two weeks. It would be two weeks as many times over as there are people who are cohabiting that location that have any symptoms (months in some cases). And those who realize they are sick after the quarantine starts would not be able to seek care, since they likely won't have the necessary medical professionals and services available to them without breaking isolation.
Quarantine only works if you can quickly identify and collect the sick people into an area where they can be treated and isolated from the rest of society. The lockdowns were never intended or able to stop the spread, only limit it to prevent overwhelming the hospitals. For the most part, we can call that a success. Continuing the lockdowns on people with the lowest risk while there's excess hospital capacity available might delay a few deaths, but it also incurs huge costs on society in terms of the economics, mental and emotional wellbeing and delays the development of immunity/resistance within the population.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2020, @08:28PM
Incorrect. You do not isolate individuals, you quarantine areas, and wait for that area to reach a herd immunity, to stop being a locus of spreading infection. Or, you go Medieval, and burn the entire neighborhood to the ground. Preferably from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.