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Comment by roca | Hacker News Reader

If you insist that the difference between "lockdown" and "no lockdown" is whether the authorities back their restrictions with legal authority, it makes the term "lockdown" meaningless and you should stop talking about it.

What matters to me and most other responsible citizens is: what are the rules I need to follow? Can I have social gatherings? Can I go out for dinner? If I can't, I'm calling that a lockdown. This is what determines the effects on the economy, mental health, personal freedom, etc. What is technically legal is irrelevant.

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> If you insist that the difference between "lockdown" and "no lockdown" is whether the authorities back their restrictions with legal authority, it makes the term "lockdown" meaningless and you should stop talking about it.

You've explained a pretty clear and meaningful distinction. You may not think it is important, but it has a meaning. I'm saying this as someone who supports authorities backing their restrictions with legal authority and vigorous enforcement.

That's fair, but the distinction does get blurry. In Auckland over time we have had:

1. Government suggesting that wearing masks on public transport would be good

2. Government asking everyone to wear masks on public transport

3. Government issuing a legally backed health order requiring everyone to wear masks on public transport, but saying police will take an "educative approach", i.e. no actual enforcement

4. Government legally requiring everyone to wear masks and the police actually enforcing it a little bit but mostly not

Theoretically we could have

5. Government enforcing mask usage rigorously.

Apparently some people think that at some point we crossed a line that was really important, but was it #3, #4, or #5, and why?

When a word has a range of meanings and people aren’t sure precisely what someone else means, they ask questions to find out what their interlocutor is referring to.

Perhaps if you are leading an organization or have some legal authority, you can insist on a precise definition to be used in a particular context, but in general public discourse, attempts to do that are typically ineffective.

You think what is technically legal is irrelevant, and that I should stop using the word ‘lockdown’.

I think what is technically legal is quite relevant.

Making things illegal is not the only tool for getting people to adopt behaviors. Often it is counterproductive.

A key point about Sweden is it appears they had a lot of people behaving responsibly despite not using the force of law.

Contrast that with the UK which had strongly enforced legal lockdowns, but notably poor results.

If you don’t think we should consider whether the mechanisms we are using to get people to behave responsibly are effective, then you don’t have to participate in such considerations.

If you want to make the argument that making restrictions illegal on paper decreases compliance, that's fine, though I very much doubt it. Comparisons across very different countries won't make the case.

But when people talk about whether lockdowns are good or bad they tend to be assuming compliance and considering the effects of that compliance, so I think your definition sows confusion.

I’m not making a case. I’m making a distinction which you seem to be saying I should not be.

Compliance rate is a very commonly considered variable in evidence based medicine - there is nothing confusing about considering it.

Compliance very much varies between intervention types and cultures. Also not remotely controversial.

Assuming compliance is almost always an error in considering the outcomes of medical interventions.

If we are going to reason about what kinds of coronavirus interventions are effective, we must consider compliance.

Whether something is mandated by law or not is definitely a variable in determining compliance.

If it were not, and as you claim, Swedes have been complying this whole time, why would Sweden have started using force of law recently?

Presumably they think it will increase compliance.

There are many reports of high compliance. E.g. https://www.politico.eu/article/sweden-coronavirus-lessons/ "93 percent of the population say they are following social-distancing recommendations." Maybe compliance has waned since. I don't know.

Here's a typical narrative that illustrates why we should be more careful about the word "lockdown":

Alex: "Sweden has successfully managed COVID19 without a lockdown."

Bob: "Great, so we should just go and live our normal lives then."

Alex: "Actually no. We need to cut off most social contact, ban visitors to rest homes, and work from home when possible."

Bob: "Er, that sounds like a lockdown to me!"

Alex: "WELL ACTUALLY it's not a lockdown as long as the government doesn't assert the legal authority to enforce these restrictions."

Bob: "... but the effects on health, well-being and the economy will be the same as a lockdown?"

Alex: "If everyone complies, which we expect them to, then yes, but the important thing is that we don't call it a lockdown."

Here's a typical narrative that illustrates why we should be more careful about the word "lockdown":

Alex: "Sweden has successfully managed COVID19 without a lockdown."

Bob: "How did they manage that?"

Alex: "They gave their citizens a bunch of guidance on how to reduce the spread of the disease, and asked them to be responsible and most Swedes complied."

Bob: "Why can’t we do that?"

Alex: "Good question - something to do with our government or our culture?"

Bob: "Seems like our government might have burned less goodwill if it had used Sweden’s approach and we’d be in better shape going into this second wave.”

Alex: “Yeah, maybe you are right.”

Actually, I agree with you in that compliance is far more important than whether a lockdown is legally enforced or not.

That means defining lockdown as "government restrictions legally enforced" doesn't make sense. Defining it as "government restrictions widely complied with" would make a lot more sense. And by that definition, Sweden has apparently had a lockdown.

I don’t see why it ‘doesn’t make sense’.

It’s a clear distinction.

That why many people are saying ‘Sweden didn’t have a lockdown’.

What they mean is ‘Sweden didn’t have a legally mandated set of restrictions’.

This is just a true statement.

The fact that the Swedish government made recommendations that Swedes followed without using force of law is interesting, and informative.

> What they mean is ‘Sweden didn’t have a legally mandated set of restrictions’.

True for some people, not for others. I have talked to many people who have repeated "Sweden didn't have a lockdown" and think that means Swedes didn't change their behaviour significantly. They are surprised, even disbelieving, when I point out the quite significant restrictions most Swedes have complied with. These people were misled by news reports using the term "lockdown" the way you do.

Whether or not defining the term "lockdown" differently is the solution, there needs to be some improvement in the way we write about this.

Notably, elsewhere in the thread ‘Sporktacular’ asserts that Sweden really didn’t even have good compliance:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25119518

Which would imply no lockdown by any definition.

It's not good faith to know exactly what someone is talking about, but insist that you would prefer that the word they used to express it mean a different thing, and that all discussion should end until they invent another word.

"A key point about Sweden is it appears they had a lot of people behaving responsibly despite not using the force of law."

Mandated lockdowns are precisely for the people who don't voluntarily behave responsibly. And damn Sweden has a lot of them too.

Worse, those in charge used their authority to mandate NOT using masks: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/it-s-been-so-so-surr...

https://time.com/5899432/sweden-coronovirus-disaster/

Swedes failed each other, and the failure to employ legal authority effectively meant their government did too. And their economy is no better for it https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/business/sweden-economy-c...

Sounds like you are saying they didn’t have a lockdown but should have had.

It’s worth pointing out that roca’s comment contradicts you about Sweden’s compliance rate: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25118200

I certainly am, and think roca's claims aren't supported by the sources I provided.

My reply was partly because of the sentence "The fact that the Swedish government made recommendations that Swedes followed without using force of law is interesting, and informative." However if you weren't claiming that Swedes followed recommendations and meant it as a conditional then I misdirected my reply.

That makes sense. I could have been clearer and qualified my statement with “If as Roca claims”, rather than “The fact that”.

I was replying to Roca and just taking their facts at face value.

Your three sources in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25119518 do not seem to mention compliance at all. They are all arguing that the restrictions requested by the Swedish government were too weak, which I absolutely agree with.

Can you quote sources saying compliance with the government's requests was low? Because I see, for example, https://www.politico.eu/article/sweden-coronavirus-lessons/:

> 93 percent of the population say they are following social-distancing recommendations.

https://www.government.se/articles/2020/06/social-distancing...:

> Swedes are largely following the advice and recommendations issued by the Public Health Agency of Sweden.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53498133:

> a survey released this week by Sweden's Civil Contingencies Agency suggests 87% of the population are continuing to follow social distancing recommendations to the same extent as they were one or two weeks earlier, up from 82% a month ago.

[It does also say "there have been reports of large gatherings and mingling in some tourist hotspots since domestic travel restrictions were relaxed last month" but that is anecdotal.]

Reports like these formed my view that compliance with the (inadequate!!!) Swedish government restrictions has been high (though I have also read reports of decreasing compliance lately, consistent with trends in other countries). Perhaps these reports were never accurate but I'd want to see sources saying so.

I think the distinction between legally backed lockdowns and government recommendations is extremely relevant and at the core of the entire US response debate.

There is a large portion of the population that will fight tooth and nail against an order, but will follow a recommendation.

Obvious hyperbole alert!: I love my wife, but I would be furious if I were ordered to kiss her at gunpoint.

In this case, the public reaction all ties back to how individuals view their relationship with laws and the government.

That's fair. That's probably a cultural difference between my country and yours.

I think you’ve just conceded the point you’ve been arguing against.

We have run into BIG problems because people don't come close to following recommendations if they're left to their own devices. Sometimes you need a little more of a 'nudge' to get people to do the right thing.

“Despite North Dakota’s remarkable efforts at testing and case finding, these measures are no longer enough, and we are now in desperate need of implementing stronger measures in order to save lives and preserve our health care workforce and capacity,” said Dr. Paul Carson, an infectious disease specialist, professor of public health at North Dakota State University and physician advisor to the state’s COVID-19 response. “We have a growing body of good evidence that masking, especially when paired with other mitigation strategies, can substantially reduce the spread of the virus. I am very grateful that the Governor has taken the bold measure to implement an enforced mask mandate across the state, and am hopeful this will help to flatten the curve.”

https://www.governor.nd.gov/news/burgum-announces-new-requir...

More and more conservative states are finding that if they don't make masks mandatory all that winds up happening is the ICUs fill up, healthcare workers start getting sick, and things get real scary real quick (e.g. Arizona changed their tune about masks REAL quick when Phoenix ICUs started hitting 90% capacity).

I hate the government telling me what to do as much as the next person, but there are a lot of people out there who just don't grasp the concept of 'just because you can, doesn't mean you should.'

I don't care if you kiss your wife or don't kiss your wife. I do care if you stand 6 inches behind me coughing with no mask in the grocery store, and if you do that I would very much like you to be thrown out by force if necessary, because you're putting my life and my family's life at risk because of nothing other than some bizarre paranoia about how wearing masks makes you less of a man (not that I think you personally would do that, but I had that happen to me pre-mask-regulations during COVID in an Arizona grocery store and it really pissed me off.

A sick-looking guy with no mask on hacking up a lung in front of the deli counter at Safeway isn't freedom, it's stupidity. Stuff like that just happens in the absence of mandatory restrictions, and it puts everyone's life at risk for zero reason. I wish my fellow Americans weren't that stupid, but unfortunately enough of them are.

Weirdly, US mask wearing compliance has greatly exceeded that of the UK and is not that dissimilar to EU countries on average.

As for legal requirements. My guess is that if Trump had said - “I’m not going to let those democrats order you around. I’m wearing a mask because Americans know what’s right without needing to be told what to do.” There might be even more compliance.

Unfortunately mask compliance on this side of the pond has largely been a result of government intervention:

"As rapidly growing case counts strained health care systems across the South and Southwest this summer, more Republican leaders ordered citizens to wear masks to help slow the spread of the virus. In July, President Donald Trump wore a mask in public for the first time and urged Americans to do the same, marking a change in tone from earlier in the pandemic."

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/08/27/more-americ...

"A tidal wave of new mask requirements has been issued in the last few days, amid surging cases in many regions, including more than 75,000 new coronavirus cases across the country on Thursday, the most in a single day. Face coverings will be required at stores like Walmart, Target and CVS, and in a growing number of Republican-led states where governors once resisted such mandates."

"More than half the states have issued statewide mask requirements, including Arkansas, where Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, announced a face covering requirement on Thursday, after previously taking a more hands-off approach. Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado, a Democrat, also issued a mask order on Thursday, after questioning whether such a mandate would be enforceable."

"But there remains firm resistance in many circles, including from some Republican leaders who view mask requirements as a threat to personal liberty."

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/16/us/coronavirus-masks.html

Unfortunately (I've been using that word a lot lately), Trump endorsing masks would have conflicted with his somewhat perplexing political strategy of gaslighting his base into thinking the virus wasn't anything to take seriously.

'Speaking on Capitol Hill on 10 March, Mr Trump said: "Just stay calm. It will go away."'

'Nine days later, after the White House declared the pandemic a national emergency, the president told Woodward: "I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down, because I don't want to create a panic."'

https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-54172311

And, of course, then he got it, and even with the best care in the country, and cutting edge therapies not available to normal people still had a hell of a time.

If he had done a photo-op standing in front of a pallet of N95s in NYC during the worst of it there, and pumped federal cash into making sure the country was up to its ass in PPE, this election would have been a cakewalk for him. He would have looked heroic and decisive. But, he didn't. For some reason, he took a different approach. I'm not really sure why, but 2020 is just a year of head-scratchers.

Are you agreeing or disagreeing with the parent post or my post above.

From my perspective, it seems like you come to the same conclusion.

While you say that "Unfortunately mask compliance on this side of the pond has largely been a result of government intervention" it is also clear that non-compliance is largely a result of government intervention, eg Trump and others failing to encourage mask use, and both side weaponizing the issue.

Your point is that if the government did not make any mask mandates, people would wear masks because of reverse psychology. So we need to get rid of mask mandates so that people will wear masks?

My point is that they tried it without a mandate already. North Dakota, Arizona, Iowa, Arkansas, etc. States without mask mandates saw cases spike, ICUs filled up, health care workers started getting sick, things got scary, and they were forced to implement mask mandates before reaching the point where there was zero available healthcare capacity for non-COVID issues.

Why have so many states that initially refused mask mandates had to turn 180 degrees and mandate masks? Because nobody was wearing masks without the mandate.

Trump failing to encourage mask use is an active decision not to intervene. You seem to be saying that by failing to invade Canada, we have intervened in Canada.

Or maybe I missed your point? That's definitely a possibility.

“Trump failing to encourage mask use is an active decision not to intervene.”

I think the disagreement rests on this point. From my point of view Trump has done vastly more than not intervene.

The President of the United States has gactively discouraged* mask usage.

That is why states have decided they need mandates.

You know, that's a really good point. I was defining intervention as making policy, but that may be a little outdated.

Anecdotally, I've started seeing a lot more people wearing masks in supermarkets in WA after the governor issued a decree mandating them. When it was a recommendation, too many were automatically dismissing it for political reasons.

Out of curiosity, when was this and did not he supermarkets change policy on mask usage?

The policy was to require masks even before the mandate, but it wasn't really enforced, from what I've seen. The mandate went into effect sometime this summer.

(Keep in mind that this is a purple rural-turned-suburban district in WA. I didn't notice much difference in more urban areas.)

If I may ask: Thurston county?

North Bend. It's in King County, but at the easternmost edge of it. The legislative district actually spans the Cascades, so it's generally bluer to the west and redder to the east of here; we're in the middle.

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