https://nbc25news.com/amp/news/nation-world/study-says-covid-19-lockdowns-in-us-and-europe-had-little-to-no-public-health-impact

But they certainly did a lot of harm.

Not surprising . . . that was the conclusion of most analyses prior to the COVID era and was a key conclusion of the work done under the George W. administration task force on pandemic response.

well it seems for COVID the authorities did and suggested things contrary to near 100 years of respiratory research and still push to this day in the face of evidence that it wasn't all that effective

Windy City Ag said:

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Not surprising . . . that was the conclusion of most analyses prior to the COVID era and was a key conclusion of the work done under the George W. administration task force on pandemic response.

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Just like masks

Don't get this thread deleted please. This is an apolitical thread delivering a scientific fact that people need to hear.

GAC06 said:

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Don't get this thread deleted please. This is an apolitical thread delivering a scientific fact that people need to hear.

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It's not really new news though.

But closing bars did help.

I think it was clear from the beginning that for a lockdown to work, it would have to be full lock people in their houses Chinese lockdown.

You can make really crazy rules, but at least in the US there is no way to enforce them. It would be interesting to see breakdowns of some of the harsher European ones. In Spain for a while you weren't allowed out of your house.

It's basic physics that you can't spread disease to people you don't interact with. It's a sign of the futility of those rules in a free society that the restrictions didn't seem to do much.

I also think there needs to be a caveat about when the data is from. This is from early in the pandemic, when cases were actually low compared to later surges, and when most of the deaths were from group settings where lockdowns couldn't have much effect once Covid was in the building.

Spain has reported 215,000 cases per million in population, compared to 229,000 per in the US. Looks like that was pointless as well, but certainly harmed countless.

Cases are only relevant for this discussion in terms of when the lockdowns were in place. Comparing total numbers for the last two years is meaningless for understanding what restrictions, if any, made a difference.

Lockdowns only "worked" if they stopped hospitals from being overrun or if they prevented spread until treatments or vaccines were available. Spain's measures didn't do that. Transmission was still rampant.

Data?

amercer said:

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Data?

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https://sites.krieger.jhu.edu/iae/files/2022/01/A-Literature-Review-and-Meta-Analysis-of-the-Effects-of-Lockdowns-on-COVID-19-Mortality.pdf

Here ya go


https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/spain/

That doesn't answer the question I posed.

We know that on the whole, lockdowns short of the Chinese model failed on average. We don't know if they all failed equally or if some things worked. It stands to reason that the closer you get to the Chinese model, the better it would work, but I'd like to see some data on that before someone proposes it next time.

Also, that study did show that closing bars helped. Which sucks but is good to know I guess.

Lockdown measures can't "help". They work or they don't. Either they prevent transmission, or they prevent hospitals being overrun, or they stall until treatments or preventions are developed. They didn't work. Period.

amercer said:

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That doesn't answer the question I posed.

We know that on the whole, lockdowns short of the Chinese model failed on average. We don't know if they all failed equally or if some things worked. It stands to reason that the closer you get to the Chinese model, the better it would work, but I'd like to see some data on that before someone proposes it next time.

Also, that study did show that closing bars helped. Which sucks but is good to know I guess.

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I don't know. Feels like you are looking for a reason to lock down in some scenarios. I'm looking at the macro impacts from doing it and the ROI isn't there and this study shows that.

You read this study and assume people will say "gee lockdowns didn't work let's not do that again"

I read it and assume lots of people will instead say "well we didn't lockdown hard enough"

Covid is over. Hopefully it's 100 years until another pandemic, but at some point we will need to actually, dispassionately, review the data. I'm glad that real scientists at a good institution have produced this study. But the internet reaction to it will be anything but dispassionate analysis. And there are a lot more relevant questions that need to be addressed before we actually know much of anything.

amercer said:

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You read this study and assume people will say "gee lockdowns didn't work let's not do that again"

I read it and assume lots of people will instead say "well we didn't lockdown hard enough"

Covid is over. Hopefully it's 100 years until another pandemic, but at some point we will need to actually, dispassionately, review the data. I'm glad that real scientists at a good institution have produced this study. But the internet reaction to it will be anything but dispassionate analysis. And there are a lot more relevant questions that need to be addressed before we actually know much of anything.

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Yeah, I get that. I'm at the point though that common sense is overriding most everything else for me on this topic. Of course lockdowns didn't work (or weren't worth it as a minimum) with everything we know, have learned, and experienced.

Australia and New Zealand ain't getting memo

I think the larger point is that for lockdowns and other NPIs to be anywhere close to worth it (especially for a disease with a 99.7%+ survival rate) there needs to be a significant benefit shown from them. Since there's not a significant difference between states like Florida that were wide open vs CA or NY, there's really no question that lockdowns and other NPIs aren't worth the cost. Virus goes up/virus goes down, no matter what we do. Vaccines are the only thing that has helped by reducing severity.

Of course, since NPIs are solely political grandstanding now I'm sure we'll continue to see them.

No one got it right. The island nations (and China) did control spread very well. But then they ****ed up part 2, which was vaccinate everyone (with the good vaccines), and open back up. So now they are in a bad position and they had the worst effects of lockdowns.

It's a matter of cost and benefit. Lockdowns worked - very little. The cost was astronomical. It seems the scientists who signed off on the Great Barrington Declaration got it right. Focused protection would have better balanced protection versus economic costs.

https://gbdeclaration.org

amercer said:

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No one got it right. The island nations (and China) did control spread very well. But then they ****ed up part 2, which was vaccinate everyone (with the good vaccines), and open back up. So now they are in a bad position and they had the worst effects of lockdowns.

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Plenty of people got it right, just not the idiot politicians administering public policy. It's not a single factor equation with the only goal being minimizing absolute death toll. Not to mention everyone with a brain knew that the measures being put in place were complete useless except to provide a security blanket to the psychologically fragile. We had previous data on lockdowns, masks, and social distancing, and none of it supported any of the measures we took/continue to take.

It is what so many people feared...the "cure" was far worse than the disease.

I, too, was very reluctantly in favor of a short shut down until we knew what exactly was going on. By April 2020, I realized we were wrong to shut down at all. The issue with most of these measures is that they are essentially opening Pandora's box and lead to more measures, and become extremely hard to pull back and always overstay their welcome. Many studies are even coming out now that actually show that quarantining after symptoms are gone vs just going out, at least with Omicron, don't have any substantial difference in viral spread.

I am still floored with the amount of those masking. But as long as it's a personal choice, whatever.

Be glad we aren't a communist country like China. Unless there is a epidemic where a very large percentage die, free countries like the US cannot effectively lock down. I am still shocked anyone shut down due to omicron. It is so much less severe....

Lockdowns work about as well as cutting off flights to and from other countries

amercer said:

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That doesn't answer the question I posed.

We know that on the whole, lockdowns short of the Chinese model failed on average. We don't know if they all failed equally or if some things worked. It stands to reason that the closer you get to the Chinese model, the better it would work, but I'd like to see some data on that before someone proposes it next time.

Also, that study did show that closing bars helped. Which sucks but is good to know I guess.

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Did the Chinese method work? Are they're any verifiable numbers on China?

Did welding people shut in their homes do more harm than good?

Let's never use China again for an example of pandemic (or really anything) response. Just say no to any commie response

Agthatbuilds said:

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amercer said:

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That doesn't answer the question I posed.

We know that on the whole, lockdowns short of the Chinese model failed on average. We don't know if they all failed equally or if some things worked. It stands to reason that the closer you get to the Chinese model, the better it would work, but I'd like to see some data on that before someone proposes it next time.

Also, that study did show that closing bars helped. Which sucks but is good to know I guess.

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Did the Chinese method work? Are they're any verifiable numbers on China?

Did welding people shut in their homes do more harm than good?

Let's never use China again for an example of pandemic (or really anything) response. Just say no to any commie response

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We will never know. They stopped reporting numbers long ago and had the gall to say they had 0 cases during the height of this thing. Lol.

The Chinese forcibly removed people from their homes and sent them to quarantine camps.

FlyRod said:

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CoachO_08 said:

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It is what so many people feared...the "cure" was far worse than the disease.

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I think for this to be true, you'd have to find a way to tally up the lockdown toll. The Covid death toll of course is easy to see. But of course it's not just deathfinancial burden, stress, disability, grief.

I think you can figure out how to link bad things to lockdownsdepression, Suicide, domestic abuse, loss from work, etc. But it would be tricky.

"Cost" of course can mean (a) death, (b) toll on economies, (c) combination.

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None of this matters when you see that NPIs had no actual material impact when comparing places who deployed them and places that didn't. No negative impact, even if it was hard to quantify, was worth it because NPIs didn't actually do anything. Not sure how this is even a debate.