COVID Lockdowns Were a Giant Experiment. It Was a Failure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly at this point who cares. We did the best we could under a unique and heretofore inexperienced event. This is for scientists to be studying to plan for future pandemics. Getting angry now is ridiculous.

The problem is we weren’t allowed to ask questions and dissenting views were discouraged. Anytime you’re not allowed to ask questions or push back on something you should be concerned. The climate at the time didn’t allow questioning of precautions.

What are you talking about? There were plenty of people who questioned everything and did whatever they wanted anyway. It’s not like the police came and arrested people for expressing dissenting views. Even in early covid when people were dying, plenty of people questioned why they had to be inconvenienced to save other people’s lives and behaved accordingly. Lockdowns were never going to work in this country because we are a narcissistic and selfish society who rarely behave for the greater good of community.

Oh so you think we should have been more like China with peoples doors nailed shut?

Dissent was absolutely impossible on a social level and as we know from the social media 1A case pending at the Supreme Court, the government was extremely closely involved in getting viewpoints on covid deleted from social media. Even if that case finds there was no 1A violation, it absolutely shows that the government acted to literally delete opposing views.

Where in my post did I say anything remotely close to nailing people’s doors shut. I said people could have dissenting views here and they did. I also have no idea what the government did on social media. I personally saw plenty of dissent that wasn’t deleted.

Maybe you should inform yourself about the case on social media censorship: https://www.thefire.org/news/fire-statement-supreme-courts-grant-certiorari-murthy-v-missouri

As for nailing doors shut, what was the point of the claim that Americans were “too selfish” to lockdown voluntarily, then? For that matter, I find the “selfish” line very telling. There is a subset of people who viewed covid lockdowns, masking, and vaccination as an opportunity to show moral superiority. Which has nothing to do with whether these measures work on a public health level. Of COURSE people do not want to stay isolated in their homes - there’s nothing “selfish” about it. The only way drastic lockdown can be maintained is through force, like in China.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly at this point who cares. We did the best we could under a unique and heretofore inexperienced event. This is for scientists to be studying to plan for future pandemics. Getting angry now is ridiculous.

The problem is we weren’t allowed to ask questions and dissenting views were discouraged. Anytime you’re not allowed to ask questions or push back on something you should be concerned. The climate at the time didn’t allow questioning of precautions.

What are you talking about? There were plenty of people who questioned everything and did whatever they wanted anyway. It’s not like the police came and arrested people for expressing dissenting views. Even in early covid when people were dying, plenty of people questioned why they had to be inconvenienced to save other people’s lives and behaved accordingly. Lockdowns were never going to work in this country because we are a narcissistic and selfish society who rarely behave for the greater good of community.

Oh so you think we should have been more like China with peoples doors nailed shut?

Dissent was absolutely impossible on a social level and as we know from the social media 1A case pending at the Supreme Court, the government was extremely closely involved in getting viewpoints on covid deleted from social media. Even if that case finds there was no 1A violation, it absolutely shows that the government acted to literally delete opposing views.

Where in my post did I say anything remotely close to nailing people’s doors shut. I said people could have dissenting views here and they did. I also have no idea what the government did on social media. I personally saw plenty of dissent that wasn’t deleted.

I had mild covid, a sore throat, and it was deleted every single time if I mentioned it as my own experience. This was not allowed to be discussed at all, here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly at this point who cares. We did the best we could under a unique and heretofore inexperienced event. This is for scientists to be studying to plan for future pandemics. Getting angry now is ridiculous.

The problem is we weren’t allowed to ask questions and dissenting views were discouraged. Anytime you’re not allowed to ask questions or push back on something you should be concerned. The climate at the time didn’t allow questioning of precautions.

What are you talking about? There were plenty of people who questioned everything and did whatever they wanted anyway. It’s not like the police came and arrested people for expressing dissenting views. Even in early covid when people were dying, plenty of people questioned why they had to be inconvenienced to save other people’s lives and behaved accordingly. Lockdowns were never going to work in this country because we are a narcissistic and selfish society who rarely behave for the greater good of community.

Oh so you think we should have been more like China with peoples doors nailed shut?

Dissent was absolutely impossible on a social level and as we know from the social media 1A case pending at the Supreme Court, the government was extremely closely involved in getting viewpoints on covid deleted from social media. Even if that case finds there was no 1A violation, it absolutely shows that the government acted to literally delete opposing views.

In the DC area, sure. But not in many other areas. We drove to Michigan to see family several times in mid and late 2021, after having been vaccinated, and let me tell you when we crossed from Pennsylvania into Ohio, no one was masked except us. No one. Even in PA, the farther west we got, the less masking there was. DC really is a bubble. Hell I still see people masking outside, which is crazy in 2023. And yes, I know maybe like 3 people are doing it for allergies or something, but most aren't. I do wear a mask on metro myself still, but nowhere else. And outside of DC virtually no one even does that.

Right, it was very localized. I remember even just going to a brewery in Chantilly in summer 2021 and being the only people masking. (Ironically what I got there was food poisoning, not covid!)

[Anonymous]

Who is still obsessed and mad over “lockdowns” (which isn’t anything we ever did in this country anyway).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly at this point who cares. We did the best we could under a unique and heretofore inexperienced event. This is for scientists to be studying to plan for future pandemics. Getting angry now is ridiculous.

The problem is we weren’t allowed to ask questions and dissenting views were discouraged. Anytime you’re not allowed to ask questions or push back on something you should be concerned. The climate at the time didn’t allow questioning of precautions.

What are you talking about? There were plenty of people who questioned everything and did whatever they wanted anyway. It’s not like the police came and arrested people for expressing dissenting views. Even in early covid when people were dying, plenty of people questioned why they had to be inconvenienced to save other people’s lives and behaved accordingly. Lockdowns were never going to work in this country because we are a narcissistic and selfish society who rarely behave for the greater good of community.

Oh so you think we should have been more like China with peoples doors nailed shut?

Dissent was absolutely impossible on a social level and as we know from the social media 1A case pending at the Supreme Court, the government was extremely closely involved in getting viewpoints on covid deleted from social media. Even if that case finds there was no 1A violation, it absolutely shows that the government acted to literally delete opposing views.

Where in my post did I say anything remotely close to nailing people’s doors shut. I said people could have dissenting views here and they did. I also have no idea what the government did on social media. I personally saw plenty of dissent that wasn’t deleted.

I had mild covid, a sore throat, and it was deleted every single time if I mentioned it as my own experience. This was not allowed to be discussed at all, here.

Interesting. When was that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly at this point who cares. We did the best we could under a unique and heretofore inexperienced event. This is for scientists to be studying to plan for future pandemics. Getting angry now is ridiculous.

This 100%. People forget that there was virtually nothing known about this virus, and that we had no tests and no treatments. Oh, also it could spread asymptomatically. Would *you* want to be the one that made the call to send kids back to school only to have a breakout of the virus with a 10% fatality rate?

Calling the lockdowns an "experiment" is misinformed and deliberately incendiary. An experiment would be if we decided to lock down 50% of the schools in a school district and allowed the other 50% to operate as normal. An experiment is something that you do with planning and foresight and signed consent by the participants. An experiment also has predetermined metrics and measures of success and failure that are accepted by the experts in the field.

To say the lockdowns were a failed experiment is pure clickbait meant to anger people, and you fell for it, OP.

All this, exactly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who is still obsessed and mad over “lockdowns” (which isn’t anything we ever did in this country anyway).

the National Guard wouldn’t let me sit in the park in April 2020.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly at this point who cares. We did the best we could under a unique and heretofore inexperienced event. This is for scientists to be studying to plan for future pandemics. Getting angry now is ridiculous.

The problem is we weren’t allowed to ask questions and dissenting views were discouraged. Anytime you’re not allowed to ask questions or push back on something you should be concerned. The climate at the time didn’t allow questioning of precautions.

What are you talking about? There were plenty of people who questioned everything and did whatever they wanted anyway. It’s not like the police came and arrested people for expressing dissenting views. Even in early covid when people were dying, plenty of people questioned why they had to be inconvenienced to save other people’s lives and behaved accordingly. Lockdowns were never going to work in this country because we are a narcissistic and selfish society who rarely behave for the greater good of community.

Oh so you think we should have been more like China with peoples doors nailed shut?

Dissent was absolutely impossible on a social level and as we know from the social media 1A case pending at the Supreme Court, the government was extremely closely involved in getting viewpoints on covid deleted from social media. Even if that case finds there was no 1A violation, it absolutely shows that the government acted to literally delete opposing views.

Where in my post did I say anything remotely close to nailing people’s doors shut. I said people could have dissenting views here and they did. I also have no idea what the government did on social media. I personally saw plenty of dissent that wasn’t deleted.

I had mild covid, a sore throat, and it was deleted every single time if I mentioned it as my own experience. This was not allowed to be discussed at all, here.

Interesting. When was that?

Well, I had it in June 2021 so anytime after that. I'd point you to the posts, but alas, deleted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly at this point who cares. We did the best we could under a unique and heretofore inexperienced event. This is for scientists to be studying to plan for future pandemics. Getting angry now is ridiculous.

This 100%. People forget that there was virtually nothing known about this virus, and that we had no tests and no treatments. Oh, also it could spread asymptomatically. Would *you* want to be the one that made the call to send kids back to school only to have a breakout of the virus with a 10% fatality rate?

Calling the lockdowns an "experiment" is misinformed and deliberately incendiary. An experiment would be if we decided to lock down 50% of the schools in a school district and allowed the other 50% to operate as normal. An experiment is something that you do with planning and foresight and signed consent by the participants. An experiment also has predetermined metrics and measures of success and failure that are accepted by the experts in the field.

To say the lockdowns were a failed experiment is pure clickbait meant to anger people, and you fell for it, OP.

All this, exactly.

this is such a funny take but it’s pretty much the only one Democrats are left with. they have given up arguing that lockdowns worked or had no harms. now the official line is “what else could we have done??? mistakes were made but there was no way to know.” Another line about school closures is “Well there was no way teachers would agree to come back so we had to do virtual.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So this is about you being in a snit fit over school closings?

Newsflash: Teachers were not going to return to the classroom because they were the exact demographic Covid was killing.

Simply not true. Teachers were not the exact demographic COVID was killing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly at this point who cares. We did the best we could under a unique and heretofore inexperienced event. This is for scientists to be studying to plan for future pandemics. Getting angry now is ridiculous.

The problem is we weren’t allowed to ask questions and dissenting views were discouraged. Anytime you’re not allowed to ask questions or push back on something you should be concerned. The climate at the time didn’t allow questioning of precautions.

What are you talking about? There were plenty of people who questioned everything and did whatever they wanted anyway. It’s not like the police came and arrested people for expressing dissenting views. Even in early covid when people were dying, plenty of people questioned why they had to be inconvenienced to save other people’s lives and behaved accordingly. Lockdowns were never going to work in this country because we are a narcissistic and selfish society who rarely behave for the greater good of community.

Oh so you think we should have been more like China with peoples doors nailed shut?

Dissent was absolutely impossible on a social level and as we know from the social media 1A case pending at the Supreme Court, the government was extremely closely involved in getting viewpoints on covid deleted from social media. Even if that case finds there was no 1A violation, it absolutely shows that the government acted to literally delete opposing views.

Where in my post did I say anything remotely close to nailing people’s doors shut. I said people could have dissenting views here and they did. I also have no idea what the government did on social media. I personally saw plenty of dissent that wasn’t deleted.

I had mild covid, a sore throat, and it was deleted every single time if I mentioned it as my own experience. This was not allowed to be discussed at all, here.

Interesting. When was that?

Well, I had it in June 2021 so anytime after that. I'd point you to the posts, but alas, deleted.

Ah, so right during the first wave of vaccinations when we were just learning that, contrary to the official statements, the vaccines were not 95% efficacious and did not prevent transmission. That tracks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly at this point who cares. We did the best we could under a unique and heretofore inexperienced event. This is for scientists to be studying to plan for future pandemics. Getting angry now is ridiculous.

This 100%. People forget that there was virtually nothing known about this virus, and that we had no tests and no treatments. Oh, also it could spread asymptomatically. Would *you* want to be the one that made the call to send kids back to school only to have a breakout of the virus with a 10% fatality rate?

Calling the lockdowns an "experiment" is misinformed and deliberately incendiary. An experiment would be if we decided to lock down 50% of the schools in a school district and allowed the other 50% to operate as normal. An experiment is something that you do with planning and foresight and signed consent by the participants. An experiment also has predetermined metrics and measures of success and failure that are accepted by the experts in the field.

To say the lockdowns were a failed experiment is pure clickbait meant to anger people, and you fell for it, OP.

All this, exactly.

this is such a funny take but it’s pretty much the only one Democrats are left with. they have given up arguing that lockdowns worked or had no harms. now the official line is “what else could we have done??? mistakes were made but there was no way to know.” Another line about school closures is “Well there was no way teachers would agree to come back so we had to do virtual.”

It's pretty much the only time the Democrats don't want to talk about the past.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly at this point who cares. We did the best we could under a unique and heretofore inexperienced event. This is for scientists to be studying to plan for future pandemics. Getting angry now is ridiculous.

This 100%. People forget that there was virtually nothing known about this virus, and that we had no tests and no treatments. Oh, also it could spread asymptomatically. Would *you* want to be the one that made the call to send kids back to school only to have a breakout of the virus with a 10% fatality rate?

Calling the lockdowns an "experiment" is misinformed and deliberately incendiary. An experiment would be if we decided to lock down 50% of the schools in a school district and allowed the other 50% to operate as normal. An experiment is something that you do with planning and foresight and signed consent by the participants. An experiment also has predetermined metrics and measures of success and failure that are accepted by the experts in the field.

To say the lockdowns were a failed experiment is pure clickbait meant to anger people, and you fell for it, OP.

All this, exactly.

this is such a funny take but it’s pretty much the only one Democrats are left with. they have given up arguing that lockdowns worked or had no harms. now the official line is “what else could we have done??? mistakes were made but there was no way to know.” Another line about school closures is “Well there was no way teachers would agree to come back so we had to do virtual.”

It's pretty much the only time the Democrats don't want to talk about the past.

Ha, totally

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who is still obsessed and mad over “lockdowns” (which isn’t anything we ever did in this country anyway).

the National Guard wouldn’t let me sit in the park in April 2020.

What park was that, dearie?

I don’t remember any National Guard deployments related to Covid so I am going to call “bullshit” on this one.

Again, I don’t understand the obsession with this. As was previously stated, public health officials did the best they could with the information available at the time. And the goal was to not overwhelm hospitals— to slow the spread, not prevent people from getting sick. They just didn’t want people sick all at once. To that end, social distancing (not “lockdowns” we never had actual lockdowns) were largely effective. Somehow these obsessed people have moved the goalposts and think the objective was preventing people from getting it. That was never the stated objective.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Apologies if this was already posted, but I came across this article from New York magazine that made me question the efficacy of lockdowns, and our whole response to the pandemic. Very much 20/20 hindsight, but the more I think about it, the angrier I get, especially with closing the schools.

Here’s a link, along with a key paragraph arguing that Sweden probably had the right response.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/covid-lockdowns-big-fail-joe-nocera-bethany-mclean-book-excerpt.html

So in attempting to gauge the value of lockdowns, the most appropriate way is to look not just at COVID deaths but at all deaths during the pandemic years. That’s known as the “excess deaths” — a measure of how many more people died than in a normal year. One authoritative accounting was compiled by The Spectator using data gathered by the OECD. It showed that during the first two years of the pandemic — 2020 and 2021 — the U.S. had 19 percent more deaths than it normally saw in two years’ time. For the U.K., there was a 10 percent rise. And for Sweden — one of the few countries that had refused to lock down its society — it was just 4 percent. An analysis by Bloomberg found broadly similar results. In other words, for all the criticism Sweden shouldered from the world’s public health officials for refusing to institute lockdowns, it wound up seeing a lower overall death rate during the pandemic than most peer nations that shut down schools and public gatherings. It is not unreasonable to conclude from the available data that the lockdowns led to more overall deaths in the U.S. than a policy that resembled Sweden’s would have.

This is a stupid take.

Feel free to expand...