America is losing the stomach to fight Covid-19
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We have a lot more information now with which to project the benefits and costs of locking down to various degrees. It's all a guess, of course, but it's becoming clear that the costs of locking down are quite harsh, in terms of collateral deaths, etc.
Being smart is not "losing one's stomach to fight".
We also need to look at how a lack of centralized response means the good work done to socially distance was wasted in part because as a country the US never took this seriously at the same time.
Look at the comments in here. People are saying a virus that has killed over a hundred thousand people in three months was “overblown”. We didn’t stop the spread, we don’t have a good plan to go forwards, and we’re going to keep seeing second waves.
The US lost it’s nerve to fight, and opened up businesses early. Not allowed visits from grandparents early, opened up businesses early. That’s more than enough to undo the work we’ve done. We’re fucking up.
It's been months now since epidemiologists acknowledged the US could not eradicate COVID-19 without a vaccine. I don't think any large country has been able to (China might be close?). Economists have all been clear that we can't lock down for another year.
There simply is no fight to have at this point. Mitigating damage is the only option.
The answer to (1) is starting to look like "a lot". And most tragically, it could be that a large number of those were due to well-intended actions like locking down.
It's within the realm of possibility that the right thing to do was pretty much "nothing". As in, the basic health procedures specified for flu season, etc.
Reams of papers and probably shelves of books will be written studying this, so perhaps eventually we'll have some idea.
In any case, as others have pointed out, the protests have pretty much wiped out the idea of locking down. The economic costs (think: people who will go broke and die from it) even more so.
I don’t think many Americans didn’t take the virus seriously. What they were scared about is what we’re seeing in India and Mexico, where lockdowns had to be rolled back before they accomplished any suppression at all. This is just a complete disaster, sure to set back their economic and political development by decades, and I don’t think lockdown advocates had good reasons to believe it couldn’t happen here.
There is much I don't agree with concerning our handling of Covid-19, far from all having to with the actual strategy, which I find questionable this far mostly based on the lack of any discernable scientific consensus regarding a strategy touted as scientifically sound.
I however do agree that considering an exhaustion/psychological adaption scenario, is something you have to do in a situation like this.
One strategy I've seen referred to as effective is essentially periodically altering the level of lockdown, but the high virulence in conjunction with the long latencies in the feedback looks seems to make it really hard to employ for Covid-19, as the necessary period still seems to be on the order of months.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/us/the-united-states-h...
Non-paywalled article based on the linked FT piece:
The US is losing the ‘discipline’ to fight coronavirus and is ‘leaving the battlefield before the war is over’
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/06/the-us-is-losing-the-discip...
It's been over 2 months now since the lockdowns began and and a lot of people who were told 'flatten the curve' are asking when the curve will be flat enough.
> Mission accomplished only works when there is a vaccine, which is at least a year away.
A year with little if any time spent with family and friends? A year where a trip to the market means putting on your virus armor? A year where our kids get little education, little outdoor play, little social contact?
There's obviously concern about the economic damage of the lockdown, but with some justification there's also a mental health concern. What is the risk of covid vs. the risk of 'normalizing' isolation? When we all get out - can we pick up where we left off?
I'm starting to wonder when I just give up. My spouse is a virologist so we are a lot more stringent than most - but I see the neighborhood kids out playing basketball everyday and I can't fail to notice that they are all doing fine. Maybe they are going to prove to be the smart ones.
I'm glad you have the humility about potentially being wrong that the math-illiterate journalists don't. Instead, they have doubled down on their initial freakout.
Most people, I think, treat this like poker. You get a few new data points, and you shift your chips to locking down. You get more data points, you start taking them out. Reasonable.
The journalist crowd, and some of my relatives, went all in on the lockdown. They could either look at the new data, and chill out and admit they overreacted for 2 months, OR they can just try to shame me for not wearing a mask when I'm riding my bike on a trail in a massive, empty wildlife refuge.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/06/08/upshot/when-e...
In my own home I think the difference is becoming stark ( and hopefully doesn't come to a head ). My spouse has worked with deadly viruses and sees risk risk risk.
I'm the engineer, I'm the pragmatists, I look backwards and extrapolate from what has already happened. What are the chances of getting the virus during a barbecue with friends vs. the chances of dying in a car crash during the drive over? Can I believe that the virus "might" spread on surfaces without seeing a lot more cases than I'd expect? Healthy living doesn't just boil down to "not infected".
Plus with 2 jobs and young kids there is only so much that can be done without supervision.
Not really, my response would be "Do you drive on the freeway?".
People are generally terrible at assessing risk.
I'm also in the South, and there's plenty of outdoor activity going on!
Socialization is easy when you see people at work or schools or clubs. A casual "Hey do you want to come over this weekend?" can be throw out without a lot of pressure on either side.
Socialization is hard when you have to put yourself out there blindly, send invitations, and risk rejection. Most people aren't good at it and I think a lot of those people are settling into a life where it's so easy to sit on the couch and watch Netflix that nothing else seems worth the effort.
The key would have been to allow everyone 60 and under to continue normally unless they have other risk factors. The consequences of a case for most in that age group aren't too bad, less than flu for most. Older folk and those at risk could isolate and take other precautions.
No economic shutdown, no 40 million unemployed, no $6 trillion spent, far fewer bankrupt businesses, and vastly fewer long-term consequences. I hope we learn from this, it was an EXPENSIVE lesson. 20/20 hindsight is a wonderful thing.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/09/us/coronaviru...
Add in military cases, add in cases that have occurred on cruise ships or other places where people can't leave...
What really is the number of cases from 'ordinary' people going on with their 'ordinary' lives? It seems to me that clarification on that point has been missing from the overall discussion.
There's been terrible mismanagement of this in nursing homes in a couple of states in particular. That was completely avoidable.
In most states, nursing homes have done well.
The military and prisons have accounted for some cases, but not all that many. There's been plenty of community spread in some places.
Since there's (apparently) no treatment and no vaccine, herd immunity is the only workable outcome. We've flattened the curve, let's continue to take reasonable, easy precautions and ride this thing out.
I really don't see much difference in people going after direct Right wing protest to the lockdown itself and people saying the lockdown is somehow superseded by moral virtue: in either case you are saying some higher principle overrides your duty to your fellow human beings (in keeping the curve low...). This "letter of the law over all"/legalism is, in my experience, the basis for modern all American ethical negotiation and it has to be changed.
Just earlier this week the CDC chose not to admonish protesters for the worthiness of their cause: that should be orthogonal to the CDC's duty!
The whole "racism is about public health" line is blatantly dogmatic political activity and I shudder to think of what this would look like on the right.
Also, this: "Mission accomplished only works when there is a vaccine, which is at least a year away."
No, we didn't sign up for a lockdown until a vaccine exists.
Has anyone wondered why we don't hear about Wisconsin in the news? The Wisconsin lockdown was ended a month ago by the courts, against the state government's will. There isn't a spike in cases a month later. Why is that? Why isn't that being reported? In the US, I no longer hear about Sweden on the news either.
What I do know is that the US media was vehemently against people congregating outdoors a few weeks ago, and then decided that the risk was worth it when people began to protest for a righteous cause they happened to agree with. They were acting like the world was going to end a week before when a bunch of rednecks were swimming together at the Lake of the Ozarks. Specifically, they talked about covid spreading like wild-fire at choir practices due to the nature of people yelling and projecting moisture droplets. They were totally cool with the yelling protesters though. (I support the protests and think they were right to ignore the virus while exercising their rights.)
It's summer time, and my friends and neighbors just don't think it's worth it to not live their lives. It might be a dumb decision in the long run. We shall see. But the media is invested in an apocalyptic narrative. They report bad news, ignore good news. Their reporters, like the vast majority of journalists, are essentially mathematically illiterate, Nate Silver and his like aside. Twitter is filled with opinionated morons who I wouldn't trust to walk my dog, and these journalists are part of that club. Not listening to them anymore. From now on, I just look at the data.
Edit: Ah yes, commence the down-voting by the fearful for not endorsing their strategy of pretending to be agoraphobic for 2 months. I might be wrong, and I admit it. But are any of you who are wiping down every package that comes into your house willing to admit you MIGHT be overreacting?
This is evident if you compare Sweden's mortality rate to it's neighbors (10x higher).
> What I do know is that the US media was vehemently against people congregating outdoors a few weeks ago, and then decided that the risk was worth it when people began to protest for a righteous cause they happened to agree with.
There's differences between going out in crowds without masks and with masks. There's also differences between just causes and mediocre causes.
And as to your last point about Wisconsin: most places aren't Wisconsin. Socal, Florida, Texas and other major population centers are back over their early peaks. And these increases predated the protesting this past week. Things were on the upswing already.