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Comment by rajup | Hacker News Reader

In your opinion (I doubt any of what you said has hard established fact to counter it), do strict lockdowns work? Or is there a spectrum of lockdown we should be considering to balance a myriad set of social, economic and health concerns? The problem is, someone asking the second question in today's hyper-polarized world is somehow equated to being an anti-science, self-serving politically motivated miscreant. Or in your words "liars".

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> In your opinion (I doubt any of what you said has hard established fact to counter it), do strict lockdowns work?

After watching the results in Australia and China, I think they do.

It works in the sense that banning all cars to prevent all traffic accidents does. I appreciate Australians' sacrifices(I wont even bother entertaining unverifiable Chinese statistics) but I do not want the government, Republican or Democrat, to have that power. I was asked to flatten the curve to avoid overwhelming hospitals, not to prevent any and all cases ever. I do my part by wearing a mask and avoiding unnecessary travel. I do not support being arbitrarily put on house arrest because my neighbors got sick.

> The problem is, someone asking the second question in today's hyper-polarized world is somehow equated to being an anti-science, self-serving politically motivated miscreant.

I disagree. The people being called anti-science and liars are not asking the second question at all, but instead wanting to act like there is no virus. Big difference.

Truly asking the second question, which everyone else seems to ask and evaluate constantly, is what gradient of lockdown works for what situation.

Not sure to laugh or cry as this goes off topic, but from what I understand COVID transmission is caused by person to person contact of water droplets from breathing, coughing blah blah blah. No ctonact, no transmission. But we live in a half-assed world so we don't actual suffocate the spread we just make it pass out for a bit and let it start back up. This crap of "oh the things are getting better so lets loosen up" just gets it going again. But now with so much spread it will would likely have to be too aggressive for too long for reasons that would get us further off-topic from the shitty article on disinformation. But really what does Fauci have to do with this when it's only as bad as the flu and we have a plan?

I have said more than once that the cost of a lockdown must be balanced with the risk it avoids, and I have never been accused of being a liar or being anti-science. But I'm also not a public figure, and I think that makes a difference.

I think they can work in the short term but fail in the long term unless you government has power and will like the Chinese government to enforce it. No one said democracy was the best version of governments in all cases, but it's the best overall option we have so we suffer through it. In the long term people will get tired of losing their houses, livelihood, etc during a very long lockdown as we see happening in Europe and the USA. Unless you have a gun pointed at them people just start ignoring it based on the premise they can't throw us all in jail.

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