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

[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.

+1 million - one of the most notable things about the COVID response was the almost immediate rise of a faction of loud people that were determined to push back against any measure that would inconvenience them in the slightest.

The measures were dumb. Just delaying the inevitable.

The truth is, we don't really know. There were too many people who ignored measures or implemented them improperly (see people with masks under their noses). And I don't trust a lot of data. See the lady on one of these threads who talks about how they were supposed to have a covid test before getting on a plane and the nurse came, they paid her to just go away, and she didn't do the test. So how many people did that nurse NOT test but report as negative? Repeat that kind of BS all over the country and you get suspect, useless "data".

So when people go on on here about "the data" i almost have to laugh. Except that it's so sad. What decent data do we really have?

And these same people are saying outright they will ignore public health directives next time around because of what they have "learned". Even though they have no idea what could be the cause of the next pandemic and how it will differ from covid.

God help us all.

Measures that the public is unable or unwilling to perform reliably are not effective public health measures. That should be a major lesson from the pandemic response. We spent 18 months keeping kids out of school and telling people to mask while walking on the sidewalk or between the restaurant table and bathroom rather than actually focusing on measures to help those at risk of severe illness.

We are talking about two different kinds of effective. There is effective re: preventing spread of a disease. Masking and some of the measures, had they been implemented widely and properly, could have done that.

You are talking about PR. Find me anything you can get all Americans to do these days. Americans are a bunch of stupid, entitled little sh**s who won't do much of anything if it inconveniences them.

Different things. And Americans' stupidity is not a valid reason not to try when something like a pandemic happens. But it is not encouraging for the future.

Also, plenty of the masking policies and mandates that were in place were not practical, effective, or necessary. Did you have a preschooler in the pandemic ostensibly subjected to all-day masking at age 2? Did you have children with ASD or sensory processing disorders? Did you live in a jurisdiction that required masks on the sidewalk, but not at a restaurant table?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

+1 million - one of the most notable things about the COVID response was the almost immediate rise of a faction of loud people that were determined to push back against any measure that would inconvenience them in the slightest.

The measures were dumb. Just delaying the inevitable.

The truth is, we don't really know. There were too many people who ignored measures or implemented them improperly (see people with masks under their noses). And I don't trust a lot of data. See the lady on one of these threads who talks about how they were supposed to have a covid test before getting on a plane and the nurse came, they paid her to just go away, and she didn't do the test. So how many people did that nurse NOT test but report as negative? Repeat that kind of BS all over the country and you get suspect, useless "data".

So when people go on on here about "the data" i almost have to laugh. Except that it's so sad. What decent data do we really have?

And these same people are saying outright they will ignore public health directives next time around because of what they have "learned". Even though they have no idea what could be the cause of the next pandemic and how it will differ from covid.

God help us all.

Measures that the public is unable or unwilling to perform reliably are not effective public health measures. That should be a major lesson from the pandemic response. We spent 18 months keeping kids out of school and telling people to mask while walking on the sidewalk or between the restaurant table and bathroom rather than actually focusing on measures to help those at risk of severe illness.

We are talking about two different kinds of effective. There is effective re: preventing spread of a disease. Masking and some of the measures, had they been implemented widely and properly, could have done that.

You are talking about PR. Find me anything you can get all Americans to do these days. Americans are a bunch of stupid, entitled little sh**s who won't do much of anything if it inconveniences them.

Different things. And Americans' stupidity is not a valid reason not to try when something like a pandemic happens. But it is not encouraging for the future.

Also, plenty of the masking policies and mandates that were in place were not practical, effective, or necessary. Did you have a preschooler in the pandemic ostensibly subjected to all-day masking at age 2? Did you have children with ASD or sensory processing disorders? Did you live in a jurisdiction that required masks on the sidewalk, but not at a restaurant table?

Do you know how many germs there are on the street?!?!!?!??!? /s

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem with this example is that Sweden is a small, culturally homogenous, fairly wealthy country in a northern climate. Would the same approach have the same outcome in the US? Probably not.

Like questions I'd want answered include:

- Did high conscientiousness among Swedish people result in voluntary social distancing during Covid peaks even without lockdowns?

- Did the climate in Sweden, with just a short summer season, allow Sweden to avoid the worst of the pandemic because people there socialize less outside their families in cold months anyway?

- Did Sweden's strong social safety net play a role?

I do tend to think that hard, very restrictive lockdowns likely have less of an effect on death rates than we think, and also that prolonged lockdowns have real costs that we are still reluctant to acknowledge in many cases.

The problem is that this is a topic that’s such a magnet for propagandists and kooks that it’s hard to have a rational discussion about this.

We’re the descendants of people who survived endless waves of epidemics.

Chances are that, given a few days’ notice, people will spontaneously, instinctively, ferociously enforce any lockdowns that are really necessary.

The sign that the lockdowns stopped being necessary once we had access to masks is that plenty of ordinary people rebelled against the lockdowns after about two or three weeks.

But, on the other hand, it seems a little silly to judge the people who imposed the lockdowns. For the first few weeks, they had no idea what they were really up against.

And it’s not really fair to compare the United States with another country, because we probably don’t know what combination of virus variants, immune system genes and antibodies people went into the pandemic with.

Maybe the United States had worse results because a tougher strain dominated here, or because we had more people with genes that made them vulnerable to COVID.

Another problem is that it’s easy to assume that anyone who brings up the topic is a Russian or Chinese social media outreach worker who mainly wants to stir up trouble, install a fascist puppet government in Washington and help Putin conquer Europe.

I think most people remember and understand the uncertainty that came in the spring of 2020, and can forgive all but the silliest restrictions (e.g., closed playgrounds).

The issue is that many restrictions continued long after that initial knee-jerk reaction to a new risk.

They were not silly restrictions. They were in place to reduce hospitalizations for a highly contagious illness where hospital beds and ventilators were scarce. If you are so upset over being asked to stay home for a few weeks, you really need your mental health checked.

Other silly ideas we had to deal with: wiping down groceries, decontaminating mail, wiping down grocery carts, wiping down checkout belts, etc.

Activities that temporarily mollified the germaphobes until they thought of new "health precautions."

Remember two weeks to flatten the curve that changed to Zero COVID?

Actually doing some stuff like wiping down grocery carts and check out belts is a good practice.

How many diseases are spread by conveyor belts? Would it be statistically measurable? It would roughly be the same as requiring everyone wear a knit hat when driving to reduce head injuries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

+1 million - one of the most notable things about the COVID response was the almost immediate rise of a faction of loud people that were determined to push back against any measure that would inconvenience them in the slightest.

The measures were dumb. Just delaying the inevitable.

The truth is, we don't really know. There were too many people who ignored measures or implemented them improperly (see people with masks under their noses). And I don't trust a lot of data. See the lady on one of these threads who talks about how they were supposed to have a covid test before getting on a plane and the nurse came, they paid her to just go away, and she didn't do the test. So how many people did that nurse NOT test but report as negative? Repeat that kind of BS all over the country and you get suspect, useless "data".

So when people go on on here about "the data" i almost have to laugh. Except that it's so sad. What decent data do we really have?

And these same people are saying outright they will ignore public health directives next time around because of what they have "learned". Even though they have no idea what could be the cause of the next pandemic and how it will differ from covid.

God help us all.

Measures that the public is unable or unwilling to perform reliably are not effective public health measures. That should be a major lesson from the pandemic response. We spent 18 months keeping kids out of school and telling people to mask while walking on the sidewalk or between the restaurant table and bathroom rather than actually focusing on measures to help those at risk of severe illness.

We are talking about two different kinds of effective. There is effective re: preventing spread of a disease. Masking and some of the measures, had they been implemented widely and properly, could have done that.

You are talking about PR. Find me anything you can get all Americans to do these days. Americans are a bunch of stupid, entitled little sh**s who won't do much of anything if it inconveniences them.

Different things. And Americans' stupidity is not a valid reason not to try when something like a pandemic happens. But it is not encouraging for the future.

That's like claiming abstinence-only education is an effective measure for preventing unwanted pregnancies.

Public health measures are not effective if the public can't or won't adhere to them. That's part of what makes public health challenging. If that doesn't make sense to you, then you shouldn't be setting public policy.

As suggested on this board, we could call in the National Guard and shoot any teenagers having sex. Draconian enforcement is always the solution, right?

[Anonymous]

[mastodon]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Florida is 12th for highest mortality rate in the US for Covid deaths.

Yes but they have a much older population. The fact it’s only 12th practically proves the restrictions were pointless.

No. They had so many excess deaths. Age adjusted.

Of course there were additional deaths after the introduction of a new virus. That's not the question. The question is whether restrictions did anything to meaningfully decrease that number, or if they just caused unnecessary additional pain and suffering.

It’s really not a question, because statistically they fared worse in red states than blue, even adjusted for the age of the population. I would argue that death and hospitalization are both extreme pain and suffering. Being bored at home in front of a screen really doesn’t compare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:[mastodon]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Florida is 12th for highest mortality rate in the US for Covid deaths.

Yes but they have a much older population. The fact it’s only 12th practically proves the restrictions were pointless.

No. They had so many excess deaths. Age adjusted.

Of course there were additional deaths after the introduction of a new virus. That's not the question. The question is whether restrictions did anything to meaningfully decrease that number, or if they just caused unnecessary additional pain and suffering.

It’s really not a question, because statistically they fared worse in red states than blue, even adjusted for the age of the population. I would argue that death and hospitalization are both extreme pain and suffering. Being bored at home in front of a screen really doesn’t compare.

You had an awfully cushy pandemic if being bored was your worst problem. Are you really that oblivious to the harm that was done to education, financial well-being, and mental health?

And do you really think the only relevant variables for covid outcomes are political leadership and population age?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

+1 million - one of the most notable things about the COVID response was the almost immediate rise of a faction of loud people that were determined to push back against any measure that would inconvenience them in the slightest.

The measures were dumb. Just delaying the inevitable.

The truth is, we don't really know. There were too many people who ignored measures or implemented them improperly (see people with masks under their noses). And I don't trust a lot of data. See the lady on one of these threads who talks about how they were supposed to have a covid test before getting on a plane and the nurse came, they paid her to just go away, and she didn't do the test. So how many people did that nurse NOT test but report as negative? Repeat that kind of BS all over the country and you get suspect, useless "data".

So when people go on on here about "the data" i almost have to laugh. Except that it's so sad. What decent data do we really have?

And these same people are saying outright they will ignore public health directives next time around because of what they have "learned". Even though they have no idea what could be the cause of the next pandemic and how it will differ from covid.

God help us all.

Measures that the public is unable or unwilling to perform reliably are not effective public health measures. That should be a major lesson from the pandemic response. We spent 18 months keeping kids out of school and telling people to mask while walking on the sidewalk or between the restaurant table and bathroom rather than actually focusing on measures to help those at risk of severe illness.

We are talking about two different kinds of effective. There is effective re: preventing spread of a disease. Masking and some of the measures, had they been implemented widely and properly, could have done that.

You are talking about PR. Find me anything you can get all Americans to do these days. Americans are a bunch of stupid, entitled little sh**s who won't do much of anything if it inconveniences them.

Different things. And Americans' stupidity is not a valid reason not to try when something like a pandemic happens. But it is not encouraging for the future.

Also, plenty of the masking policies and mandates that were in place were not practical, effective, or necessary. Did you have a preschooler in the pandemic ostensibly subjected to all-day masking at age 2? Did you have children with ASD or sensory processing disorders? Did you live in a jurisdiction that required masks on the sidewalk, but not at a restaurant table?

Some of us have SN kids who had the same issues before covid, so stop blaming covid for all your problems. You didn't mask at home or most other places. And, why the drama over masking when not eating at a restaurant to help keep staff healthy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem with this example is that Sweden is a small, culturally homogenous, fairly wealthy country in a northern climate. Would the same approach have the same outcome in the US? Probably not.

Like questions I'd want answered include:

- Did high conscientiousness among Swedish people result in voluntary social distancing during Covid peaks even without lockdowns?

- Did the climate in Sweden, with just a short summer season, allow Sweden to avoid the worst of the pandemic because people there socialize less outside their families in cold months anyway?

- Did Sweden's strong social safety net play a role?

I do tend to think that hard, very restrictive lockdowns likely have less of an effect on death rates than we think, and also that prolonged lockdowns have real costs that we are still reluctant to acknowledge in many cases.

The problem is that this is a topic that’s such a magnet for propagandists and kooks that it’s hard to have a rational discussion about this.

We’re the descendants of people who survived endless waves of epidemics.

Chances are that, given a few days’ notice, people will spontaneously, instinctively, ferociously enforce any lockdowns that are really necessary.

The sign that the lockdowns stopped being necessary once we had access to masks is that plenty of ordinary people rebelled against the lockdowns after about two or three weeks.

But, on the other hand, it seems a little silly to judge the people who imposed the lockdowns. For the first few weeks, they had no idea what they were really up against.

And it’s not really fair to compare the United States with another country, because we probably don’t know what combination of virus variants, immune system genes and antibodies people went into the pandemic with.

Maybe the United States had worse results because a tougher strain dominated here, or because we had more people with genes that made them vulnerable to COVID.

Another problem is that it’s easy to assume that anyone who brings up the topic is a Russian or Chinese social media outreach worker who mainly wants to stir up trouble, install a fascist puppet government in Washington and help Putin conquer Europe.

I think most people remember and understand the uncertainty that came in the spring of 2020, and can forgive all but the silliest restrictions (e.g., closed playgrounds).

The issue is that many restrictions continued long after that initial knee-jerk reaction to a new risk.

They were not silly restrictions. They were in place to reduce hospitalizations for a highly contagious illness where hospital beds and ventilators were scarce. If you are so upset over being asked to stay home for a few weeks, you really need your mental health checked.

Other silly ideas we had to deal with: wiping down groceries, decontaminating mail, wiping down grocery carts, wiping down checkout belts, etc.

Activities that temporarily mollified the germaphobes until they thought of new "health precautions."

Remember two weeks to flatten the curve that changed to Zero COVID?

Actually doing some stuff like wiping down grocery carts and check out belts is a good practice.

How many diseases are spread by conveyor belts? Would it be statistically measurable? It would roughly be the same as requiring everyone wear a knit hat when driving to reduce head injuries.

If you cannot understand the common cold, flu and other bacteria that can get on your food are an issue and surface based there is no hope for you. We wear seatbelts to prevent injury and have air bags.

[Anonymous]

I give a lot of leniency for what happened the first year up until vaccines became available. But then schools didn’t fully reopen even in April 2021 after teachers were prioritized for vaccines. And fast forward to spring of 2022, my preschooler was still masking and being made to quarantine simply for exposures because he wasn’t old enough yet to be vaccinated. That was the time when we had to make sure anyone who refused to get the vaccine would suffer harsher restrictions even if it meant throwing the youngest, lowest risk kids who were too young for vaccines under the bus.

This was also after that New England super spreader event occurred amongst vaccinated people — it was clear very early on that the vaccine was mostly to protect the vaccinated and wouldn’t actually do much to prevent spread. But that went against the narrative we were all sold at first until finally it had to be admitted that the vaccine did not in fact do a good job of preventing transmission. It was also becoming clear that the CDC’s recommendations, particularly for kids, was out of line with much of the rest of the western world and that their data keeping wasn’t necessarily that reliable. And if you dared to question the CDC guidelines out loud people around here were all too quick to accuse you of being MAGA.

Overall, I say this as someone who took stay at home orders seriously at first, masked when we still thought it was making a difference, and am vaxxed + boosted x2. I’m not some anti science nutter and in general I’ve moved on and no longer think of the COVID response anymore. But I’d be lying if I didn’t say the post-spring 2021 handling of the pandemic has made me less confident in our public health agencies. There was way too much partisan politics involved and the CDC has lost a lot of legitimacy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

+1 million - one of the most notable things about the COVID response was the almost immediate rise of a faction of loud people that were determined to push back against any measure that would inconvenience them in the slightest.

The measures were dumb. Just delaying the inevitable.

The truth is, we don't really know. There were too many people who ignored measures or implemented them improperly (see people with masks under their noses). And I don't trust a lot of data. See the lady on one of these threads who talks about how they were supposed to have a covid test before getting on a plane and the nurse came, they paid her to just go away, and she didn't do the test. So how many people did that nurse NOT test but report as negative? Repeat that kind of BS all over the country and you get suspect, useless "data".

So when people go on on here about "the data" i almost have to laugh. Except that it's so sad. What decent data do we really have?

And these same people are saying outright they will ignore public health directives next time around because of what they have "learned". Even though they have no idea what could be the cause of the next pandemic and how it will differ from covid.

God help us all.

Measures that the public is unable or unwilling to perform reliably are not effective public health measures. That should be a major lesson from the pandemic response. We spent 18 months keeping kids out of school and telling people to mask while walking on the sidewalk or between the restaurant table and bathroom rather than actually focusing on measures to help those at risk of severe illness.

We are talking about two different kinds of effective. There is effective re: preventing spread of a disease. Masking and some of the measures, had they been implemented widely and properly, could have done that.

You are talking about PR. Find me anything you can get all Americans to do these days. Americans are a bunch of stupid, entitled little sh**s who won't do much of anything if it inconveniences them.

Different things. And Americans' stupidity is not a valid reason not to try when something like a pandemic happens. But it is not encouraging for the future.

Also, plenty of the masking policies and mandates that were in place were not practical, effective, or necessary. Did you have a preschooler in the pandemic ostensibly subjected to all-day masking at age 2? Did you have children with ASD or sensory processing disorders? Did you live in a jurisdiction that required masks on the sidewalk, but not at a restaurant table?

That may be true, but not everything was worthless. And think if all the adults had masked properly whenever they needed to. Would have meant the littlest kids could skip. But Americans always think they individually know best. And most Americans are not very bright. So do the math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:[mastodon]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Florida is 12th for highest mortality rate in the US for Covid deaths.

Yes but they have a much older population. The fact it’s only 12th practically proves the restrictions were pointless.

No. They had so many excess deaths. Age adjusted.

Of course there were additional deaths after the introduction of a new virus. That's not the question. The question is whether restrictions did anything to meaningfully decrease that number, or if they just caused unnecessary additional pain and suffering.

It’s really not a question, because statistically they fared worse in red states than blue, even adjusted for the age of the population. I would argue that death and hospitalization are both extreme pain and suffering. Being bored at home in front of a screen really doesn’t compare.

Red counties have had higher overall mortality rates for years, irrespective of covid or covid policies. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35672032/

[Anonymous]

Would be fascinating to see how the opinions here map onto how many times people have had COVID.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

+1 million - one of the most notable things about the COVID response was the almost immediate rise of a faction of loud people that were determined to push back against any measure that would inconvenience them in the slightest.

The measures were dumb. Just delaying the inevitable.

The truth is, we don't really know. There were too many people who ignored measures or implemented them improperly (see people with masks under their noses). And I don't trust a lot of data. See the lady on one of these threads who talks about how they were supposed to have a covid test before getting on a plane and the nurse came, they paid her to just go away, and she didn't do the test. So how many people did that nurse NOT test but report as negative? Repeat that kind of BS all over the country and you get suspect, useless "data".

So when people go on on here about "the data" i almost have to laugh. Except that it's so sad. What decent data do we really have?

And these same people are saying outright they will ignore public health directives next time around because of what they have "learned". Even though they have no idea what could be the cause of the next pandemic and how it will differ from covid.

God help us all.

Measures that the public is unable or unwilling to perform reliably are not effective public health measures. That should be a major lesson from the pandemic response. We spent 18 months keeping kids out of school and telling people to mask while walking on the sidewalk or between the restaurant table and bathroom rather than actually focusing on measures to help those at risk of severe illness.

We are talking about two different kinds of effective. There is effective re: preventing spread of a disease. Masking and some of the measures, had they been implemented widely and properly, could have done that.

You are talking about PR. Find me anything you can get all Americans to do these days. Americans are a bunch of stupid, entitled little sh**s who won't do much of anything if it inconveniences them.

Different things. And Americans' stupidity is not a valid reason not to try when something like a pandemic happens. But it is not encouraging for the future.

Also, plenty of the masking policies and mandates that were in place were not practical, effective, or necessary. Did you have a preschooler in the pandemic ostensibly subjected to all-day masking at age 2? Did you have children with ASD or sensory processing disorders? Did you live in a jurisdiction that required masks on the sidewalk, but not at a restaurant table?

That may be true, but not everything was worthless. And think if all the adults had masked properly whenever they needed to. Would have meant the littlest kids could skip. But Americans always think they individually know best. And most Americans are not very bright. So do the math.

Ugh this is the type of moralistic “logic” that was so prevalent during the pandemic. The whole fallacy of “if people would just do X then we could finally do Y.” But in reality there was never any support for masking very young kids and we all knew they couldn’t actually do it well (not to mention the masks came off for snack and nap, so it was just arbitrary having it worn part of the day). And your claim about Americans is funny, you think your views are the superior one, but even the WHO said no masking for kids 5 and under. America was the outlier with young kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Would be fascinating to see how the opinions here map onto how many times people have had COVID.

I think COVID policies were a failure for young children and we stopped masking/taking precautions by spring 2021. We’ve had COVID 1x in our household and my DH has yet to catch it. We stopped testing though this past spring once part of our house finally caught it and it was like a day of sneezing. So maybe we’ve had it again but assumed it was a cold or mild allergies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

+1 million - one of the most notable things about the COVID response was the almost immediate rise of a faction of loud people that were determined to push back against any measure that would inconvenience them in the slightest.

The measures were dumb. Just delaying the inevitable.

It was beneficial to delay until vaccines were available

Natural resistance could have built up in the interim. That’s the primary defense now. Not many are getting the vaccine these days.

Covid has killed off the majority that it will and it’s mutated to being less serious which is what was the goal. The vaccines don’t stop transmission.

People don’t seem to care that many millions died prematurely from Covid. Kids lost their families.

And? Restrictions wouldn't have helped either. Those people still would have become infected.

Getting infected after vaccination reduced deaths. Fewer people died. The restrictions made sense until vaccines were available.

How do you know this? I believed this at the time but now looking back it seems like the virus got weaker.

It got “weaker” because we were no longer an immune naive population.

Society of Actuaries data shows that excess mortality due to covid remained high during 2021, even with vaccines and acquired immunity. Excess mortality due to covid only fell off sharply in Q2-2022 and has remained low since. What changed in Q2-2022? The milder Omicron strain became dominant in the US in Q1-2022, with deaths a lagging indicator. https://www.soa.org/4ac0fd/globalassets/assets/files/resources/experience-studies/2023/group-life-covid-mort-06-23.pdf Table 5.9 https://covariants.org/per-country