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

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:My memory of it is that actual general “lockdowns” were brief and related to hospital capacity - we had to do whatever we could to avoid becoming New York.

The part that went on too long, was harmful and didn’t work well was remote schooling and masks for kids.

Assuming you didn't own a restaurant or a gym or want to go to a park.

They were very brief and restaurants reopened via carryout. Many struggled before and those that did well changed their business model to make it work. Others rightfully shut down.

You really don't have a clue. The forced change to a carry out model devastated restaurants. You can just retool overnight for something like that. It's not just buy some styrofoam takeout containers and let's go.

Actually many restaurants did just fine converting over. You sound like you have some serious issues if you are so inflexible and covid was so traumatic for you. Seek help.

Care to back that opinion up that many restaurants did just fine? Or are you making thing up out of thin air?

They are still open and busy. That means they are doing just fine. Some of the owners are opening up other restaurants... they are doing just fine if not very well. Many that shut down needed to close anyway.

Did you lose your business? Is that why you are so bitter?

Grow up and move on already. Millions of people died and all you care about is a playground.

You are intentionally missing the point. We care about mitigations that work, not performative measures that make a small, vocal, nutjob minority happy.

You don’t care about mitigation or you’d do simple things like masking indoors. So, stop pretending and stop with the silly comments that have no meaning to you like businesses struggling.

Funny, I remember when the CDC said wear a mask and everyone celebrated. Then the CDC said, you don't need to wear a mask, and suddenly, the CDC was the great Satan. You aren't interested in mitigations, you are interested in what makes you *feel* safe.

The initial lying about the fact that N95-level respirator use was clearly needed to reduce the risk of COVID infection (because it is airborne!) was dumb and will go down as a historical embarrassment.

I personally celebrated when they admitted they were full of it on that score. (I had already bought and was using an N95 respirator at that point; how you looked at me while I did it or whatever you have to say about it now is of no interest.)

I now think they’re idiots and will look like shills for minimizing masking in their public health messaging to individuals still trying to avoid getting COVID.

IDK what that all means about my relationship to the CDC. At any rate, it’s not as straightforward as you wish it were.

So, it's fine if you disagree with public health policy, but wrong for me to disagree with public health policy. You must be more of a medical expert than I am. What's your degree in?

Au contraire, mon frère.

You seem to want to be in a fight? IDK why, but I don’t have any views about your agreement with public health policy or lack thereof, as I have no idea what your basis for agreeing or disagreeing would be.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:NP. Yes, they were a failure. But I think in the beginning (March-April 2020) no one knew what the hell to do.

By summer 2020, it was becoming quite clear that covid wasn't really a serious concern for fairly healthy, non-elderly people.

Hindsight is 2020. Restrictions and mask mandates continued for FAR too long, and there wasn't enough emphasis on taking care of your health - going outside, exercising, eating your vegetables, etc. But I can't fault anyone for decisions in the early days - it was novel to all of us.

There was an emphasis on taking care of yourself. Early on non elderly were dying too.

Covid deaths have always been *heavily* concentrated among the old and those with significant comorbidities.

Many adults died, some had comorbidities, some didn't.

They overwhelmingly (OVERWHELMINGLY) had multiple comorbidities. The claims of "healthy and died of covid" were people who were very out of tune with their health.

We did not see healthy people (who had annual wellness exams and passed with flying colors every year) dying of covid.

Pfffft. What proportion of the population has an “annual wellness exam” every year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. Yes, they were a failure. But I think in the beginning (March-April 2020) no one knew what the hell to do.

By summer 2020, it was becoming quite clear that covid wasn't really a serious concern for fairly healthy, non-elderly people.

Hindsight is 2020. Restrictions and mask mandates continued for FAR too long, and there wasn't enough emphasis on taking care of your health - going outside, exercising, eating your vegetables, etc. But I can't fault anyone for decisions in the early days - it was novel to all of us.

There was an emphasis on taking care of yourself. Early on non elderly were dying too.

Covid deaths have always been *heavily* concentrated among the old and those with significant comorbidities.

Many adults died, some had comorbidities, some didn't.

You must have a difficult time in life given that you seem to consider all risks equally regardless of their probability or frequency.

[Anonymous]

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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.

People who work in hospitals would disagree with you.

My neighbor down the street is a lifelong Republican and a hospital administrator. She voted for Democrats in 2020 and beyond because she told me the Democrats had it right about Covid and precautions.

The democrats did very little and it was all show. (I am a democrat but disappointed in the examples the set and how they handled things). If they are encouraging masking policies they should mask.

Masking is for thee, not for me.

More specifically, if you're a MoCo council member or Public Health Officer, masking is for preschoolers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. Yes, they were a failure. But I think in the beginning (March-April 2020) no one knew what the hell to do.

By summer 2020, it was becoming quite clear that covid wasn't really a serious concern for fairly healthy, non-elderly people.

Hindsight is 2020. Restrictions and mask mandates continued for FAR too long, and there wasn't enough emphasis on taking care of your health - going outside, exercising, eating your vegetables, etc. But I can't fault anyone for decisions in the early days - it was novel to all of us.

There was an emphasis on taking care of yourself. Early on non elderly were dying too.

Covid deaths have always been *heavily* concentrated among the old and those with significant comorbidities.

Many adults died, some had comorbidities, some didn't.

You must have a difficult time in life given that you seem to consider all risks equally regardless of their probability or frequency.

I prefer not to be sick on top of health issues, funny thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. Yes, they were a failure. But I think in the beginning (March-April 2020) no one knew what the hell to do.

By summer 2020, it was becoming quite clear that covid wasn't really a serious concern for fairly healthy, non-elderly people.

Hindsight is 2020. Restrictions and mask mandates continued for FAR too long, and there wasn't enough emphasis on taking care of your health - going outside, exercising, eating your vegetables, etc. But I can't fault anyone for decisions in the early days - it was novel to all of us.

There was an emphasis on taking care of yourself. Early on non elderly were dying too.

Covid deaths have always been *heavily* concentrated among the old and those with significant comorbidities.

Many adults died, some had comorbidities, some didn't.

You must have a difficult time in life given that you seem to consider all risks equally regardless of their probability or frequency.

I prefer not to be sick on top of health issues, funny thing.

But you only care about being sick from COVID, funny thing. We don't have mitigation strategies for the flu outside a vaccine that has varied efficiency each year based on strain and the collective educated guess when developing the vaccine, nor RSV- although recent vaccine, pneumonia, bronchitis, strep. Did you always take such mitigation efforts as those imposed during COVID? What was your life like in Dec 2019?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. Yes, they were a failure. But I think in the beginning (March-April 2020) no one knew what the hell to do.

By summer 2020, it was becoming quite clear that covid wasn't really a serious concern for fairly healthy, non-elderly people.

Hindsight is 2020. Restrictions and mask mandates continued for FAR too long, and there wasn't enough emphasis on taking care of your health - going outside, exercising, eating your vegetables, etc. But I can't fault anyone for decisions in the early days - it was novel to all of us.

There was an emphasis on taking care of yourself. Early on non elderly were dying too.

Covid deaths have always been *heavily* concentrated among the old and those with significant comorbidities.

Many adults died, some had comorbidities, some didn't.

They overwhelmingly (OVERWHELMINGLY) had multiple comorbidities. The claims of "healthy and died of covid" were people who were very out of tune with their health.

We did not see healthy people (who had annual wellness exams and passed with flying colors every year) dying of covid.

Pfffft. What proportion of the population has an “annual wellness exam” every year?

People who care about their health.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. Yes, they were a failure. But I think in the beginning (March-April 2020) no one knew what the hell to do.

By summer 2020, it was becoming quite clear that covid wasn't really a serious concern for fairly healthy, non-elderly people.

Hindsight is 2020. Restrictions and mask mandates continued for FAR too long, and there wasn't enough emphasis on taking care of your health - going outside, exercising, eating your vegetables, etc. But I can't fault anyone for decisions in the early days - it was novel to all of us.

There was an emphasis on taking care of yourself. Early on non elderly were dying too.

Covid deaths have always been *heavily* concentrated among the old and those with significant comorbidities.

Many adults died, some had comorbidities, some didn't.

They overwhelmingly (OVERWHELMINGLY) had multiple comorbidities. The claims of "healthy and died of covid" were people who were very out of tune with their health.

We did not see healthy people (who had annual wellness exams and passed with flying colors every year) dying of covid.

Pfffft. What proportion of the population has an “annual wellness exam” every year?

People who care about their health.

I’ll bet that is false as a matter of survey data. Probably everyone who gets an exam professes to care, but not everyone who cares gets an exam (still less “passes with flying colors” on the strength of caring alone). And I would even bet that there are health behaviors more strongly associated with caring about health than getting examined.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

People who work in hospitals would disagree with you.

My neighbor down the street is a lifelong Republican and a hospital administrator. She voted for Democrats in 2020 and beyond because she told me the Democrats had it right about Covid and precautions.

The democrats did very little and it was all show. (I am a democrat but disappointed in the examples the set and how they handled things). If they are encouraging masking policies they should mask.

Masking is for thee, not for me.

More specifically, if you're a MoCo council member or Public Health Officer, masking is for preschoolers.

This. They thought they could hold masks over people as an incentive to get vaccines. Get your vaccine, take your mask off. Oh, no vaccines for preschoolers? Keep their masks on.

But preschoolers are terrible at wearing masks (no, they don't wear them better than adults, STFU), and vaccines don't stop transmission. So masks don't help preschoolers, and just because you got vaxxed doesn't mean you can't spread COVID.

Parents know this and the vast majority skipped the vax for their young kids. Shocking since it is SUPER fun to drag a screaming toddler to the doctor 3 times in the span of a few months.

[Anonymous]

It's so weird that here we are four years later and people are still acting like there's some vast Illuminati-level conspiracy that happened to try and solve an impossible situation in a broken world.

A highly-contagious virus that is contagious before someone has symptoms, is airborne, and not hotly lethal is an impossible situation. And it happened to us. All of us. And it's still happening. A lot of people are never symptomatic, which allows them the luxury of pretending covid19 isn't important, or never happened. Lucky them.

I wasn't lucky. My neighbor wasn't lucky. My friends father, my other friend's mother, my great uncle, that kid on my kid's soccer team--and the list goes on, all not lucky.

Given an imperfect world and a perfect virus, there are things you can do to protect yourself and your family. Wear masks. Use air purifiers. Get vaccinated. Try not to keep getting infected. Try not to infect others. None of those things are perfect. But they're all we have.

For people who don't believe, you can't really do anything. You won't convince them. I tried.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My memory of it is that actual general “lockdowns” were brief and related to hospital capacity - we had to do whatever we could to avoid becoming New York.

The part that went on too long, was harmful and didn’t work well was remote schooling and masks for kids.

Agree with this but would add that in my neighborhood, outside masking and social distancing continued for much longer. I remember there being debate on the local list serve when people started unmasking on the sidewalk in spring if 2021 because they were vaccinated. Some people wanted everyone to keep masking outdoors and were upset by it.

In this same neighborhood, both my spouse and I got hassled at various points for not being masked outside even though we were far from other people. My DH once got yelled at out a car window for being unmasked on an otherwise empty sidewalk. Once a woman yelled at me from across the street for being unmasked (no one else was around). Another woman got mad once because I was walking down a wide sidewalk with my 2 yr old who was eating a granola bar, and the woman was angry to pass my toddler unmasked.

I wore a mask to go running for about 8 months because everyone saw that fake meme of a runner spewing Covid particles. I didn't want people to hate me, so I wore a gator while running. Then there was a "study" (debunked but people didn't read the debunking) that said gators actually spread more Covid. So then I had people yelling at me on my runs "gators don't work!" I started running at 5am or 10pm and running in the street so that I would encounter fewer people.

People really lost their minds for a while, and a lot of people who claimed to be following the science were actually following their own anxiety to weird, fascist places and calling it "science."

Where was this? I've read about this degree of batsh#t insanity but thankfully dealt with none of it in Western Fairfax.

DP, but I’m betting MoCo. This level of crazy went on for 2.5 years. We were only allowed to take off masks at the gym in late Spring of 2022

DP. That is INSANE.

In VA, gyms reopened in early June 2020. Masks were not required at all for working out, but some facilities required them for "walking around" and in the locker room (but it was not enforced). I returned to my gym a few days after they reopened, and it wasn't until August 2023 that I got covid (and it was wayyyy better than getting the flu).

No, I'm not a Trumper. Neither were any of my gym friends that returned to work out right away. We were interested in taking care of our overall mental and physical health - covid was not the only health concern (we were low risk 40-somethings).

I find it concerning that nearly 4 years after the pandemic started whenever someone wants to reasonably question whether certain mitigation efforts were worthwhile in retrospect they still have to caveat the fact they aren’t a Trumper.

As a dem, I don’t think it’s a good look for our party that one has to prove they’re not a Republican in order to engage in rational discussion of health policy.

I agree. Although I probably disagree with you about covid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's so weird that here we are four years later and people are still acting like there's some vast Illuminati-level conspiracy that happened to try and solve an impossible situation in a broken world.

A highly-contagious virus that is contagious before someone has symptoms, is airborne, and not hotly lethal is an impossible situation. And it happened to us. All of us. And it's still happening. A lot of people are never symptomatic, which allows them the luxury of pretending covid19 isn't important, or never happened. Lucky them.

I wasn't lucky. My neighbor wasn't lucky. My friends father, my other friend's mother, my great uncle, that kid on my kid's soccer team--and the list goes on, all not lucky.

Given an imperfect world and a perfect virus, there are things you can do to protect yourself and your family. Wear masks. Use air purifiers. Get vaccinated. Try not to keep getting infected. Try not to infect others. None of those things are perfect. But they're all we have.

For people who don't believe, you can't really do anything. You won't convince them. I tried.

Some of us think adult masking works, but also recognize the obvious fact that they impede communication and are not great for little kids' social development. And therefore that requiring masks in schools indefinitely was not a great choice. Should have been limited to surges when you get the most bang for your buck.

For people like you that think anyone with a nuanced view is a Trumper, we really can't do anything. We can't convince you. We tried.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's so weird that here we are four years later and people are still acting like there's some vast Illuminati-level conspiracy that happened to try and solve an impossible situation in a broken world.

A highly-contagious virus that is contagious before someone has symptoms, is airborne, and not hotly lethal is an impossible situation. And it happened to us. All of us. And it's still happening. A lot of people are never symptomatic, which allows them the luxury of pretending covid19 isn't important, or never happened. Lucky them.

I wasn't lucky. My neighbor wasn't lucky. My friends father, my other friend's mother, my great uncle, that kid on my kid's soccer team--and the list goes on, all not lucky.

Given an imperfect world and a perfect virus, there are things you can do to protect yourself and your family. Wear masks. Use air purifiers. Get vaccinated. Try not to keep getting infected. Try not to infect others. None of those things are perfect. But they're all we have.

For people who don't believe, you can't really do anything. You won't convince them. I tried.

Btw, are you the person that gleefully posted how my child would be permanently injured when I thought our child had gotten COVID for the third time in a span of 9 months? You'll be disappointed to know that her immune system has not been destroyed and she is in good health. We've now gone about a year without getting COVID again (yes we do test). You can keep imagining we'll soon be punished for not making COVID our sole priority, but we'll keep living our lives happily.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's so weird that here we are four years later and people are still acting like there's some vast Illuminati-level conspiracy that happened to try and solve an impossible situation in a broken world.

A highly-contagious virus that is contagious before someone has symptoms, is airborne, and not hotly lethal is an impossible situation. And it happened to us. All of us. And it's still happening. A lot of people are never symptomatic, which allows them the luxury of pretending covid19 isn't important, or never happened. Lucky them.

I wasn't lucky. My neighbor wasn't lucky. My friends father, my other friend's mother, my great uncle, that kid on my kid's soccer team--and the list goes on, all not lucky.

Given an imperfect world and a perfect virus, there are things you can do to protect yourself and your family. Wear masks. Use air purifiers. Get vaccinated. Try not to keep getting infected. Try not to infect others. None of those things are perfect. But they're all we have.

For people who don't believe, you can't really do anything. You won't convince them. I tried.

Some of us think adult masking works, but also recognize the obvious fact that they impede communication and are not great for little kids' social development. And therefore that requiring masks in schools indefinitely was not a great choice. Should have been limited to surges when you get the most bang for your buck.

For people like you that think anyone with a nuanced view is a Trumper, we really can't do anything. We can't convince you. We tried.

Are you kids at school 24/7? Otherwise they were masking for a limited time of day and should be just fine. Are you wearing them at home? Your young child should get their development from home, which means you are outsourcing all the parenting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's so weird that here we are four years later and people are still acting like there's some vast Illuminati-level conspiracy that happened to try and solve an impossible situation in a broken world.

A highly-contagious virus that is contagious before someone has symptoms, is airborne, and not hotly lethal is an impossible situation. And it happened to us. All of us. And it's still happening. A lot of people are never symptomatic, which allows them the luxury of pretending covid19 isn't important, or never happened. Lucky them.

I wasn't lucky. My neighbor wasn't lucky. My friends father, my other friend's mother, my great uncle, that kid on my kid's soccer team--and the list goes on, all not lucky.

Given an imperfect world and a perfect virus, there are things you can do to protect yourself and your family. Wear masks. Use air purifiers. Get vaccinated. Try not to keep getting infected. Try not to infect others. None of those things are perfect. But they're all we have.

For people who don't believe, you can't really do anything. You won't convince them. I tried.

Some of us think adult masking works, but also recognize the obvious fact that they impede communication and are not great for little kids' social development. And therefore that requiring masks in schools indefinitely was not a great choice. Should have been limited to surges when you get the most bang for your buck.

For people like you that think anyone with a nuanced view is a Trumper, we really can't do anything. We can't convince you. We tried.

Are you kids at school 24/7? Otherwise they were masking for a limited time of day and should be just fine. Are you wearing them at home? Your young child should get their development from home, which means you are outsourcing all the parenting.

So, you're a SAHM without commercially valuable skills. Good for you.