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Comment by IgorPartola | Hacker News Reader

I am hoping the incoming administration invokes the defense production act to help with production of vaccine and testing supplies, as well as providing a comprehensive policy at the federal level regarding vaccine distribution. The current admin is basically letting things roll out on their own. What I am seeing is that if we do everything right, which up to now we have not, early fall is a good target for things starting to turn back to normal. I wonder if a more concentrated effort could shave a month off that. And given the projected estimates of how many tens of thousands will die in the next few weeks, and the additional surge after everyone decided to travel for the holidays, February is likely to be straight up lethal.

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Upvoted because although I agree with your sentiment, the arguably free market in this case, at this point is going to ramp up production as efficiently as possible. I assume all of these companies are each going to make $ billions even if they overproduce. They're also making a name for themselves/furthering their brand awareness, no doubt every 5-10 years we may have a similar pandemic to counter if bad actors rally to spread viruses, at an exponential rate too via different factors. The best defense is a good offense: UBI so people can survive regardless of working, and culturally people not believing that being safe and wearing a mask isn't preventing their freedoms; culturally that this is an issue is a sign of multi-generational dis-ease progression from citizens not being given enough, organized suffering/suppression of the masses for control/submission purposes. Andrew Yang's core policies will break apart the duopoly and "take the boot off of people's throats" - and then people can start to heal these deep wounds, open their hearts, allow their IQ and reasoning skills to open up/develop, to develop empathy, etc.

Pfizer is reporting that they have vaccine doses ready that nobody is picking up. Besides, I personally don’t believe the free market is capable of telling states what to do or even knows what would be the most efficient way to distribute the vaccines.

Right, I remember seeing that headline - that's due to the Trump administration's incompetence and/or treason; can't do much about that except correct the system, break apart the duopoly and the power of what has become the limited players in mainstream media; Andrew Yang's Journalism Dollars and Democracy Dollars both would help counter this adequately, along with his UBI/Freedom Dividend policy and Ranked Choice Voting - 4 simple policies, along with government option for healthcare - would powerfully shift the system immediately, and put the US on an exponential path again, without so much friction, allowing thriving for everyone; the buying power of "$1,000"/month increases exponentially as we automate more and more processes.

Edit to add: Sorry about lazy people downvoting you, whenever I talk about Bitcoin - pro-Bitcoiners don't qualitatively engage, just a quick hit of dopamine satisfies them and suppresses contrarian thoughts that aren't financially incentivized like their Bitcoin propaganda and behaviour is.

> I personally don’t believe the free market is capable of telling states what to do

States, as functional governmental bodies, are supposed to be able to handle this.

The free market is a tool and it's a good tool for some things like maximizing vaccine production. It's not the best tool for things like resource distribution when those resources need to be distributed at a loss - we literally want to spend money to fix this and it's ok to be less efficient on the cost side if it leads to better immunity.

Let's make this simpler and more accessible. You are the CEO of Google you wake up on March 1, 2020 and realize that a malware worm is spreading across your servers, damaging systems and in some cases even the hardware. The long term impact on the systems that are infected and later recovered is unclear but early evidence already suggests it's not good. Do you:

(a) Drop everything and concentrate all your resources on containing and eradicating the worm, using all available internal and external methods.

(b) Tell each department head that the worm is their problem and continue to pretend that it's business as usual. The subcontractors will figure this out because it's in their best interest to do so. Free market works.

If you choose (b) please show your work.

Do you have any evidence that suggests Pfizer is pretending that it's business as usual or is doing anything short of producing and distributing vaccine as fast as they possibly can?

I am making the analogy to the federal government, not Pfizer.

The problem with that line of logic is that states are a lot more like contractors than employees - the feds can only exert so much control. And a lot of the states are frankly incapable of taking direction even if they wanted to.

These are entities that run DMVs like, well, DMV offices - no amount of oversight/yelling/etc from the feds is going to get new IT systems online at the state level in short order in many states.

That's just incorrect. This isn't an issue of states' rights. This is an issue of e.g. the federal government directly distributing vaccines/PPE/testing supplies to hospitals: something they can absolutely do. Think about it: a hurricane hits Florida. Can FEMA respond? What do you think "national emergency" means?

I didn't say anything about states rights - I was speaking to incompetency in state government.

I worked for years in state government IT and with a contractor that worked with state IT in most states. Their ability to make and perpetuate messes is almost incomprehensible to the crowd here - it's that bad.

Imagine if you as the CEO actually started ripping servers out of the data center and erasing them! Of course you're supposed to work with your department heads to allow them to run a response - and your departments with 4000 employees are going to handle that task differently than the departments with 40.

Even your example is flawed. The United States is not one giant government - it's a collection of smaller governments. The President does not pass laws in Texas or North Dakota. The Fed has no power on internal state matters.

Work with, not say "just handle it". The CEO is playing golf.

The federal government funds states. States like KY and TN for example are a net negative money-wise for the USA. They take in more money than they produce in tax revenue. States like NY, TX, and CA fund their operations. Moreover, the federal government can use its resources to physically drive the vaccines around, help set up vaccination and testing sites, etc. In your worldview, what is the purpose of the USA as opposed to 50 separate countries?

> The federal government funds states.

Wrong, try again. States are self funding entities. The fed does give grants for some projects (bridges, rails, etc). Some states do receive more tax/grant benefits than they give, but those funds are earmarked - states can't use that money for any old reason.

> Moreover, the federal government can use its resources to physically drive the vaccines around...

Correct, the Fed can help make resources available to the states but the states have to request and allow the resource. The fed for instance can have the military perform interstate logistics, or rent out all the frozen delivery trucks and lend them to states.

The fed can not force states to take the grants, or perform operations in the state without approval.

> In your worldview, what is the purpose of the USA as opposed to 50 separate countries?

Alaska isn't overly qualified to run a military, form treaties with foreign powers, regulate interstate commerce or run the FDA. The fed does have a place, but the fed doesn't have the power to control states or boss them around (in theory - in practice federal grants do give a fair amount of power over many states). The fed is limited to interstate (that is, things involving multiple states) actions, and can't dictate the internals of a state.

The federal government effectively controls things like highways speed limits in all the states. The department of education does a whole lot of wealth redistribution and exerts a ton of control over every single public school in the country. Just some examples. The federal government is also the largest employer in the country.

> The fed can not force states to take the grants, or perform operations in the state without approval.

Fine. States that don't want the vaccine are free to refuse it. Do you think they won't play ball if the fed says "we will deliver and distribute the vaccines and you don't have to pay for them"? In what universe will this be something a state refuses saying "we want to pay for this ourselves"?

If it helps your mental model, you are the CEO of Alphabet, and Google is California, yet the worm is affecting all your subsidiaries.

The highway near my house runs at 70 and goes up to 80 in parts. Grants are conditional but also optional and that matters.

In general yes, the Fed does have an important part in what are basically non-capitalist practices - foodstamps, WIC, social security, etc etc. There are also state programs that are non-fed and also occupy a similar role.

None of that disagrees with the basic assertion - the Fed does not fund states general revenue. States are supposed to manage their own budgets and collect their own income. The fed is not an endless income stream.

Nobody is saying the fed shouldn't assist states with the vaccine. The states shouldn't however be entirely dependent on the fed for that help - they are supposed to be functional on their own. If the state is not functional without the fed then the state has screwed up.

Fine, semantics aside, the federal government is in a unique position to distribute vaccines and testing supplies and PPE with a higher efficiency coefficient than the collection of the states and territories individually. There are people arguing against this in this very thread. In generally, sure the states shouldn't rely on the fed to do everything. In this case it's better for the states to let the fed handle this. If not, why not?

Well, we only need to look at the last time there was a mass vaccination drive. New York City had a smallpox outbreak and administered millions of doses in record time.

https://twitter.com/MarkLevineNYC/status/1345407042769580032

The city was able to mobilize hundreds to thousands of distribution points, call up city workers (who the Fed has no power over) and run vaccine administration 24/7.

The state knows more about their interior, they have more resources on the ground and more control over schools and other public buildings (libraries, community centers, etc), more ability to use private businesses if needed, and control the local health infrastructure.

Did the whole country have a smallpox outbreak? No? So it sounds like it was localized to one state.

The point is that this is a nation-wide problem, and the federal government is in a unique position to be the most efficient at handling production and distribution of vaccine/testing supplies/PPE. What exactly is your argument around why it should have little or no role? There is a shortage of these things and production happens in a few centralized places. It makes sense that one centralized entity coordinate the production and distribution. What is the problem with that? Please show your work on how 50 states plus territories would handle it better.

> It makes sense that one centralized entity coordinate the production and distribution

Centralized planning can work, but when it doesn't work, it's disastrous for everyone. Decentralized systems trade off a little bit of hypothetical efficiency (again, it depends on the central planner being competent) in return for guaranteed antifragility.

If what you're saying is accurate, then we really ought to have a global government (say, the UN) coordinate distribution across the entire planet. Countries like Israel, Taiwan, New Zealand, and Singapore shouldn't be allowed to set up their own distribution systems, rather they should all play into the same globally centralized distribution system. It's a global pandemic after all, right?

How. The. Fuck. Is. This. So. Difficult?

We are in a pandemic. How we handle this does not change how we govern ourselves outside of a pandemic. It doesn't even change how we govern ourselves during a pandemic. We aren't talking about forming a world government. We aren't talking about expanding the federal government's powers. We aren't talking about Hunter Biden, the pee tape, the impeachment, chem trails, or mega churches. Put that out of your mind. Try to think like this isn't US politics because that's clearly clouding your judgement.

A centralized entity coordinating a nation-wide effort to distribute the vaccine, testing supplies, and PPE is normal. What exactly would go wrong there that the states couldn't mess up. By your logic, the FDA and the CDC shouldn't have been approving the vaccines. It should be left up to each state, no? Because what if the FDA got it wrong. Better let 50*2 smaller, less well funded agencies decide individually than one well funded agency, right?

How could the states possibly do better than a national strategy for handling the pandemic.

Note: national strategy != central government. National strategy does not expand any powers. The federal government already has all the powers it needs. No new laws would need to be passed. No new powers granted. It's literally using the resources already there for what they are meant to be used for: responding to an emergency. Why do you thing agencies like FEMA exist?

I'm done with this topic because it really seems there is a number of people here willing to bend over backwards and give themselves a cranial colonoscopy just to not blame the current admin for its utter failure to do its most basic job. If you really think this is going better than the ebola outbreak, a disease much deadlier and more contagious than COVID, then I can't do anything to pull you out of your alternative reality. That is on you.

We all understand your point of view, but beating your chest and “How. The. Fuck. Is. This. So. Difficult”ing your way around actual discussion isn’t going to change anyone’s minds.

> By your logic, the FDA and the CDC shouldn't have been approving the vaccines. It should be left up to each state, no? Because what if the FDA got it wrong. Better let 50x2 smaller, less well funded agencies decide individually than one well funded agency, right?

This isn’t even a “what if”, the FDA was disastrously slow in granting EUA’s for rapid testing. The fact that 50 states were hamstrung by the federal FDA exacerbated the pandemic. You can visualize what the FDA/CDC bottleneck looked like early in the pandemic here -> https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1238981855812055041

By your logic, why should 200+ countries have drug agencies? Why have sovereignty at all? The argument is that while central coordination is well and good, you don’t want a system that’s overly reliant on it.

And if the problem is that mobilization will be difficult for some States due to underfunded health agencies, now is the perfect time for their legislatures to increase funding via taxes and bonds. A once-in-a-century pandemic is the perfect use for State bonds, since it won’t be a recurring expense.

Many, if not most, state level public health authorities have been chronically underfunded. States are facing massive budget shortfalls. Congress has given states and cities approximately 0 relief.

State and local governments are struggling right now. "Supposed to be able to handle" and "actually able to handle" are two different things.

You realize states are supposed to fund their own public health authorities right?

States also collect their own taxes. It's on the state to manage their own budget by passing taxes and limiting expenses.

That's not how the US actually works. The federal government does quite a bit of wealth redistribution from the states that are net producers to states that cannot generate enough revenue on their own: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/economy/2019/03/20/how-...

I encourage you to read your own sources:

> Money from the federal government is redistributed back to states in the form of grants, aid programs for the needy and payments to major government contracting firms such as defense companies.

That isn't open funds, it's earmarked grants and things like foodstamps.

So earmarking money for specific programs for testing and PPE and vaccine distribution is possible and quite normal?

Yes but states should not depend on the fed as the basis of their budget, and should instead be responsible enough to have their own budgets and planning for the vaccine.

But we are not talking about states budgets in general. We are talking about the COVID-19 vaccine.

> You realize states are supposed to fund their own public health authorities right?

States can't deficit spend, which is why the Feds tend to step in for natural disasters - hurricanes, floods, pandemics, etc.

I don't really think production of vaccines or test supplies is limited in a way that could be improved significantly with DPA. Vaccine production for both the US approved mRNA vaccines is highly specialized and those companies are heavily incentivized to deliver vaccines as soon as possible since they have a de-facto duopoly for an unknown amount of time. Testing supplies are a probably a lot more scalable, but I haven't heard about supply shortages with tests in months.

The areas where executive policy could make a difference are timelines for approval of additional vaccines and optimizing vaccine delivery to hit the highest number of individuals as soon as possible. Prioritizing quick approval and distribution of the Oxford/AZ vaccine and doing the same for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine when data becomes available would likely save thousands of lives over the next few months, but neither the current nor future US administrations seem to be taking an interest in this.

There are lots of things the DPA can help with. Testing for one. PPA. Cold storage pods needed for vaccine distribution. Raw materials for any of the above.

It's not production that's the problem. It's distribution right now.

We can see states with good resources are vaccinating as quickly as the doses come in (a few days of lag time, but otherwise doing good).

But many states are stuck in logistics hell. These vaccines need -80C or -20C storage to remain unspoiled. And the administrators are overworked nurses who haven't had rest for months, due to the pandemic.

Once a dose leaves the -80C or -20C storage center, you only have a few days before the dose is ruined. So you need careful planning, maybe even allow a bit of waste for easier distribution.

The military / national guard can help with distribution, but once again the nursing shortage is biting America in the ass. I'm not really sure how to solve that issue. (Well... I dunno how to solve it this year. Ultimately we just need more immigrants and/or students)

They aren't seperable. If you have lots of vaccine, there is no reason to do prioritization and things will inevitably go faster. I'd put myself on a list for the hospital to call me any time to come in for a vaccine, but they don't have anywhere near enough vaccine to spend the time making that list (doses for about 5% of the county available, I'm towards the end of prioritization).

Investing in the education of your citizens is a proven and popular technique for having a higher quality and quantity of work force.

Both production and distribution are problems. Hence why I hope the new admin addresses both with DPA and a comprehensive strategy respectively.

It'd be late for that. Logistics takes weeks, or even months, to ramp up.

This is stuff that needed to be planned out last October if we wanted it working this month or next month.

I guess better late than never. But... don't hold your breath. We're going to be having these logistic / distribution problems for many weeks moving forward.

Right. Should have done this 20 years ago so we would have plenty of nurses today. Should do this today so that when the next pandemic hits in 20 years we are better prepared.

Even with vaccinations, this virus will be around for another 10 years. It took 185+ years to eradicate smallpox (mostly from a big WHO push in the 60s/70s). It's still not possible to eradicate Polio. Even with a massive push, it's not like a vaccine will make this go away.

We have a lot of information now about how to treat and not treat this virus. A bunch of early deaths were due to overuse of high pressure ventilators and the Governess of NY and Michigan putting sick elderly people with healthy elderly people in nursing homes without adequate isolation (most had 2 or more people per room) killed a lot of people in the first three months. We overreacted to the virus, like a social auto-immune response.

We also know the fatalities are 95% over 55. This virus has mostly reduced our life expectancy. By 5 years? 1 year? That's difficult to determine at this point. Everyone is going on about "long covid" now, but if you actually read the papers, the whole things starts to break down to a couple of case studies of 40~50 people each. There may be long term effects for heavily exposed people (health care workers) and the elderly, but the "long covid" narrative is another one if abuse and fear; not grounded in hard science and accurate risk analysis.

For things to go back to normal, the vaccine is not the solution. The solution is to stop spreading constant fear. The Great Barrington deceleration has been shunned and dismissed by all major media outlets, yet it's signed by many doctors, academics and professionals and it makes a lot of sense.

Humanity has a new virus and we need to learn to live with that. The countries who have avoided it can keep shut down, but at some point it's no longer going to be feasible to do so.

The top infectious dresses expert in the country certainly disagrees with a lot of what you are saying. Yes it will stick around. Yes the vaccine will help a great deal. What exactly is your point? That there is no reason to rush?

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/04/us/coronavirus-pandemic-year-...

and meanwhile people are losing this businesses, their livelihoods, their mental health and absolutely everything. A women in California invested heavily in outdoor dining equipment, only to be shut down, and then she sees a movie production company setup a full catering set right next to her restaurant.

The top infection dresses experts can be wrong. Don't appeal to authority. There are literally thousands of other doctors and scientists who say further lockdowns are not helping. The WHO is saying lockdowns should not be used except as a last resort!

Don't listen to just one person. Look at all the options. Lockdowns don't work.

Lockdowns 100% work. Just like the medieval term "quarantine" proved that it works, 500 years ago. They're very effective at stopping infectious diseases. You don't have to be a brain surgeon to figure out why they work.

The side effects of lockdowns suck A LOT, but less than uncontrolled spread of a virus amongst 8 billion people. Besides the fact that it would completely destroy out healthcare systems, in which case we're back to the Middle Ages, we're a few mutations away from a much deadlier disease. It would be ultimately irresponsible to allow Covid to run rampant.

Show me the evidence. You look from nation to nation, region to region, and there is no effect at all from masks or lockdowns. You are imagining they work because the TV tells you to, but they don't.

Every time they impose a stricter lockdown where I am, numbers go down. They relax it, they go up.

It's a roller coaster of disease.

What have you got against lockdowns? Is it some philosophical hatred? You're not alone, governments also hate them. They do it because they have to.

The actual numbers are totally opposite of what you say. Please show some sources. I think Shapiro covers the arguments against lockdowns very well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymD9ipSm-eg

I'm against them because they literally do not work, and they violate our basic civil rights. A man in Canada was shot months ago for not wearing a mask, after he left the store, outside his own home. In Quebec over New Years Eve, police arrested someone for having more than five people in their homes. New York wants to pass ordinances that lets them put people in camps if they're infected.

This is absolute insanity. The virus is an excuse to violate all our basic human rights. The United States constitution is basically suspended at this point.

Look at this woman who was arrested for trying to save her deteriorating mother locked in a care home:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1E390UHzTY

There you go, see the links and abstracts below.

But you're emotional, I doubt these sources will change your mind. Have a nice day!

https://www.benjaminborn.de/publication/bdm_lockdown_2020/

> While most countries imposed a lockdown in response to COVID-19, Sweden did not. To quantify the lockdown effect, we approximate a counterfactual lockdown scenario for Sweden through the outcome in a synthetic control unit. We find, first, that a 9-week lockdown in the first half of 2020 would have reduced infections and deaths by about 75% and 50%, respectively. Second, the lockdown effect starts to materialize with a delay of 3-4 weeks only. Third, the actual adjustment of mobility patterns in Sweden suggests there has been substantial voluntary social restraint, although the adjustment was less strong than under the lockdown scenario. Lastly, we find that a lockdown would not have caused much additional output loss.

https://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(20)32034-1/full...

> Lockdown therefore appears to have been successful not only in alleviating the burden on the intensive care units of the two most severely affected regions of France, but also in preventing uncontrolled epidemics in other regions. These simple observations support results from other studies which have estimated the impact of lockdown on SARS-CoV-2 spread to be strong.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S204908012...

> COVID-19's daily increasing cases and deaths have led to worldwide lockdown, quarantine and some restrictions. This study aims to analyze the effect of lockdown days on the spread of coronavirus in countries. COVID-19 cases and lockdown days data were collected for 49 countries that implemented the lockdown between certain dates (without interruption). The correlation tests were used for data analysis based on unconstrained (normal) and constrained (Tukey-lambda). The lockdown days was significantly correlated with COVID-19 pandemic based on unconstrained (r = −0.9126, F-ratio = 6.1654; t-ratio = 2.40; prob > .0203 with 49 observations) and based on Tukey-lambda (r = 0.7402, λ = 0.14). The lockdown, one of the social isolation restrictions, has been observed to prevent the COVID-19 pandemic, and showed that the spread of the virus can be significantly reduced by this preventive restriction in this study. This study offers initial evidence that the COVID-19 pandemic can be suppressed by a lockdown. The application of lockdown by governments is also thought to be effective on psychology, environment and economy besides having impact on Covid-19.

> https://www.benjaminborn.de/publication/bdm_lockdown_2020/

Literally a pre-print. There's only an abstract. I don't see the actual one on Sci-Hub or anywhere. I can read it.

> https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0140-6736%2820...

The full text of the 2nd paper is literally only two pages and only appears to look at regions in France and not other countries. There are literally no graphs, no detailed explanation of the methodology and the very next article is literally "Is COVID-19 being used as a weapon against Indigenous Peoples in Brazil?" which speaks of this very weird identity politics finding its way into major academic journals. There are references to an Appendix that I can't seem to find the full-text of, but it bothers me the paper itself doesn't seem to have a detail methodology section, risk analysis and also lists some pretty big financial incentives/interests.

The 3rd study is the only really detailed source provided, yet it only covers data up to May 5th. It also has this interesting quote:

> In addition, it is claimed that, besides the positive aspects of the lockdown, people who comply with this restriction cause a weakened immune system. The main reason for this is that there is too much food consumption and limited mobility. The effect of the lockdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on human health may be the subject of future work

It also tries to look at environmental impacts and mentions the inconsistency of lock-downs across all areas. I'm also having a hard time understand the "Transformed data" as it doesn't seem to correlate to either of the two preceding graphs at all. Also keep in mind, correlational near r=1 shows that Ice Cream sales can lead to Polio:

https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F...

That combined with the limited window and inconsistent lock-downs should at least throw question on this study.

I want your sources.

"We in the World Health Organization do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of this virus," Dr. David Nabarro (World Health Orginization).

You can find multiple articles that quote this from the WHO and link to the full 1 hour interview with the Spectator. The full interview goes on further to talk about how continued lockdowns will lead to move poverty and devastation.

There's also this study that tears apart the models used by many:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.22.20160341v...

Also you know that 2-million Neil Ferguson model? Here's the source code for it. It's disastrous: non-reproducible results and 3 different random seeds. They literally ran it multiple times and took averages (with ranges of fatalities varying by up to 60k). Also it has race conditions and can't be run in parallel. Fucking mess:

https://github.com/mrc-ide/covid-sim/blob/e8f7864ad150f40022...

As far as independent journalists that give you a different point of view:

James Corbett (who covers the origin of the lockdown policy): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuDQ_3g53qc

Ben Shapiro makes an excellent case as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymD9ipSm-eg

Which one is more likely to be right:

A) Tens if not hundreds of governments, with wildly different agendas, ranging from dictatorships to ultra liberal democracies, converge on enforcing different degrees of lockdowns. Tens of different graphs I've seen have infection rates go down, like clockwork, roughly 10-14 days after stricter lockdowns are enforced. Keep in mind that they're all aware of the economic costs, mental health issues, etc. They're not doing this for fun. And they're not going to lock us forever, there is no "freedoms" slippery slope here.

B) A rather fringe group of libertarians, freedom fighters and the like, who dislike government overreach, prove that models used by all those governments are all wrong, thus indirectly confirming their long held beliefs and biases.

In Romanian we say: "If someone says you're drunk, ignore them. If two people say that you're drunk, go to bed even if you haven't touched a bottle of liquor."

The odds of your sources being a scientific revolution are low. They're much more likely to be Nostradamuses (Nostradami?) than Galileos.

Plus, using Ben Shapiro as a source? Isn't he obviously an agenda pushing hypocrite? I mean, a broken clock is right twice a day, but still :-)

Here is the first result from google scholar: https://academic.oup.com/jtm/article/27/3/taaa037/5808003?lo.... Seems pretty effective to me

> The positive impact of lockdown in Wuhan on containing the COVID-19 outbreak in China

Wuhan, where they literally welded people in their homes?!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meRUCxlleUc

Are you seriously advocating for elimination this virus by eliminating people's basic human rights?!

What tells you that what you are seeing there is them welding people inside their apartment buildings? I see someone welding something. I don't see how you can tell who they are or what they are doing or why based on this video.

Um, the part where the guy opens the door and sees a bar welded in front of it?! There are Chineese sources that show bars being put up against peoples' doors:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfzQ8Dag8V8

There are tons of these videos by the way:

https://www.msn.com/en-ae/news/other/is-china-locking-up-ent...

But they are difficult to confirm because China heavily restricts all coms in and out of the country, or are you going to try to deny the Great Firewall of China or extreme media censorship exists next?

Here's an opinion piece from the WaPo by a Chinese citizen also stating people were welded into their homes:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/06/warning-c...

and here are a list of Chinese sources as well:

https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/a/46045/15222

We should be careful here because a lockdown and a medieval quarantine are not the same. In the middle ages quarantine typically meant keeping a ship at port and preventing from landing - and that's a very doable thing. You literally just prevent them from dropping their gang plank, and they have supplies and everything they need on board.

The same does not apply to lockdowns. People need groceries, many people have limited cooking capabilities, and homes are not self sufficient - you need maintenance people, regular supplies, so on. And, those people who live in apartments and other small domiciles are not going to stay cooped up forever on end - they are going to go get food and visit people and no amount of threats is going to prevent that.

And that's the issue. Lockdowns always have a maximum timetable that they're effective for and then they suddenly become less effective - and you don't get to reset that timer all that easily. Masks help but they are a partial solution - they have a relatively low effectiveness rate that is fine individually but in mass don't hold up.

Many governments - and I'll pick on California specifically - keep locking down tighter and tigher. Curfews, dining restrictions, gathering restrictions and more that have been going on for more than 6 months now. Do you really think getting more restrictive will be helpful at all?

Right. Quarantine that is suggested, like it's been in the US, and quarantine that's enforced are very different. Again, national strategy for "let's all stay exactly where we are for four weeks while people in hazmat suits deliver you groceries" would have been closer to medieval quarantine.

The reality is that today in southern california, ICUs are at capacity. Most people end up ok. My whole family got it and had basically just congestion for two weeks, including the 90 year old ancients we though were sure goners when they contracted it (we just turned up their oxygen and they were feeling a lot better).

That being said, enough people do need medical care, and thats enough people to entirely burden our capacity to treat any sort of medical emergency, and cases are still going up. It’s not good right now.

California had some of the strongest lockdowns and stay-at-home orders of any state and they're still having ICU issues, meanwhile Florida is not? Tennessee has similar policies to Florida and they have high cases .. Sweden has meanwhile dropped to zero.

If you really look across the board at all countries, there is ZERO corroboration between any of these arbitrary measures and the results. It's all complete random superstition nonsense. COVID response is a new religions ideology, and ideology is "doing without knowing."

Also, why are ICU beds at capacity? Is it all COVID, or tons of people who didn't get the heart surgery they needed?

Your own experiences show that your family survived this and likely has long term immunity (and will continue to do so as long as they get exposed at regular intervals).

The alternate reality is that the virus is real, but the way we've reacted to it will kill more people in the long term. I wrote about this back in March, COVID19 is two diseases. The virus and our over-reaction to it: https://battlepenguin.com/philosophy/covid-19-is-two-disease...

Check out newer sources for that Sweden claim. They've both admitted that the strategy failed plus their measures are now at least equivalent to those of their neighbors.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SSkGkmY9FcM

"If you really look across the board at all countries, there is ZERO corroboration between any of these arbitrary measures and the results. "

Care to link a published study or a report from a reputable agency? Because it sounds like this is just your hunch.

I don't think anyone is talking about 100% eradicating the virus.

Getting old people and people at risk vaccinated basically means 99% of death would be avoided and hospital would go back to pre covid numbers. Once people over 40-50 are vaccinated it's game over for covid and most of things will go back to normal.

Of course the virus won't totally disappear and people will still die of it.

> Humanity has a new virus and we need to learn to live with that.

The lockdowns / travel restrictions are part of the "learn to live with that", you can't just ignore it and run major hospitals at 110% capacity forever.

Even if 100% of the dead are in the risk/old group (which is not true), it's hard to achieve a 99% reduction with a 95% efficient vaccine. For that to work, you have to assume that the main way of infection is from inside the group. I think this is highly unlikely in a scenario where you say: protect the weak, let everybody else just get it.

We should 100% eradicate the virus. We have inexpensive vaccines available. Like you say, much of the harm is controlled well short of eradication, but it wouldn't be expensive to do it (it may even be cheaper to eradicate it than to continue to deal with it).

That may be an unrealistically high bar. Only smallpox has ever been successfully eradicated, which speaks to the difficulty in completely eradicating a disease. And since some animals can carry and spread the virus, eradicating this virus may be impossible with current technology.

Let's try it and find out if it is realistic or not.

I am.

We have a global adversary. This is exactly what humanity needs to unite. We should put aside our differences and fight together.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uROpyjnwgAk&list=PL0KBVEO7tI...

What part of hospital over-crowding are you having difficulty understanding? I am sure someone here can explain it to you.

Some of these hospitals are being over-crowded because people haven't been able to come in for basic surgeries. People have died because they haven't gotten heart surgeries. If someone comes in for getting their wisdom teeth out, and tests positive for CoV2, they're listed as a COVID case, even if they have zero symptoms (and with 40+ PCR amplifications for each test, the false positives are high).

Hospitals are over-crowded ever year in the winter for all kinds of seasonal illnesses including flu, strep and others. The Bakersfield doctors said as much back in March and were censored on all platforms for it. They're also overcrowded because America's health system is just bad as expanding care for bad seasons in general, and we haven't really noticed until this crisis.

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