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Comment by jeromegv | Hacker News Reader

Whatever the US did was not near permanent lockdowns, what is allowed to continue and be opened is more lenient than almost every country. The only countries with less restrictions than the US are opened exactly because they did a lockdown and kept the virus at bay. What kills the US economy is the virus being out there and making people afraid to get together into public settings.

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I would argue the virus itself isn't making people afraid, it's media/government fear-mongering. In reality your average person has little to fear (besides the fear of spreading it to a vulnerable loved one).

I assume most people have a vulnerable loved one, no? The issue is it's one order removed from self, and most people don't abstract that far.

And sickness, long term side effects, in addition to the threat to vulnerable loved ones. They have to keep talking about dangerous it is, because people keep insisting it isn't. It's not about just you, it's about the community-wide effect. But to be clear 30 year olds have been killed by covid 19 and people of all ages report long term after effects like shortness of breath, tiredness, and pain. And some people just can't afford to take the time off-- even a week of missed work can result in not making rent. It's happening as we speak-- homelessness is skyrocketing. These are real effects of the virus, it changes peoples lives

> And sickness

Your average person doesn't fear flu-like sicknesses. It's an inconvenience, yes, but that's about it.

> long term side effects

Again... according to CDC/WHO the average person completely recovers in 2 weeks. Yes, there are cases where permanent lung scarring was observed, but AFAIK that's super rare and has to do with the type of pneumonia synergizing with covid, not covid itself. I'm sure you can dig up other cases where long term negative effects are observed... but it seems rare compared to the normal recovery scenario. Do you have a source showing that the average person should fear developing long term side effects?

People are demonstrably not afraid to get together in public places... whatever public places I've been to (mostly in deep blue states, and also Nevada) are as crowded as they can be. Actually, outdoor spaces were overcrowded, more than usual, during complete lockdown in WA where they were literally telling people to not leave the house except for critical tasks.

This argument always seems completely untenable for me. It's highly improbable that the level of fear hits the sweet spot where without lockdowns it's not enough to prevent the spread, but enough to ruin the economy.

I really don’t think many people are afraid to go into public settings. Maybe not into a crowd, sure, but a restaurant? The holdup there is from the government, not the public.

I think it's safe to say there is a large portion of the population that will continue not eating indoors until they are vaccinated, or the infection numbers in their area go down significantly. I can't find articles to back it up, but I have read from restaurant owners saying that even when they were allowed to expand their indoor capacity, they were never hitting that limit.

With that said, this is going to vary by region. There is absolutely a large percentage of people wanting and willing to go eat indoors at restaurants right now, I just don't think that number represents a majority.

If people are scared to go out then why even have lockdowns?

Schrödinger's virus: We need lockdowns to save everyone but even if we didn't have lockdowns nobody would go anyway but we still need to lockdowns.

If the virus were actually as deadly as past examples, there wouldn’t be a need to impose lockdowns. People would avoid each other out of sheer self-preservation.

People still go out. Enough to spread infection. But not enough to maintain the economy.

I may never go back to eating at restaurants. I never really liked them to begin with, they seem like pretty much the least efficient and most expensive way to eat food. I never really understood the allure. Now I look at a crowded restaurant and all I can see is all those mouths and noses in close proximity to each other spraying and snorting god-knows-what into each other. Yuck! I may never look at crowds the same way either. The pandemic has given me a boosted appreciation of personal space and hygiene.

I would be nervous going to a restaurant if it was the same set up as before. i.e. a lot of tables packed next to each other. With the reduced indoors capacity or outdoor seating that's some what spaced out I'm less nervous about it.

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