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Comment by chitowneats | Hacker News Reader

There's your problem. There is no such thing as rational lockdown policy for an airborne virus.

Pray tell: where exactly did lockdowns work? Surely not in East Asia where multiple countries are experiencing exponential growth in covid cases right now due to seasonality. Despite widespread adoption of masking, contact tracing, etc.

Certainly not in Sweden, where they never implemented them, yet they continue to have either middling or above average results in terms of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths.

Also: no one ever expected the pandemic to be over in two weeks. We did expect our public health officials to stick to the second part, "to slow the spread". Clearly, that was a line to manipulate the public, as things quickly shifted to "until we have a vaccine". People on my side of this issue will never forget or forgive the bait and switch.

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The "two weeks" originated from the idea of instituting periodic, local lockdowns in order to keep hospitals from filling to overflow. The idea wasn't to keep people from dying from COVID-19, per se. The idea was that there would be some people who would be affected severely by the virus, but who could pull through if given supportive care in a hospital. What we didn't want was numbers getting so high that people who could have pulled through wouldn't because there were no available bed for them. That's the original idea behind how lockdowns were supposed to be used.

But, returning to my original point, once things locked down, a number of politicians realized that they would be blamed for any deaths that occurred when the lockdown was lifted. These politicians received support from the "if we can save even just one life" crowd — which I'm characterizing as the neurotic.

I couldn't agree more with your assessment, especially considering that the presidential election was occurring around the time when the lockdown began. Ultimately, it was the politics that screwed us.

> There's your problem. There is no such thing as rational lockdown policy for an airborne virus.

OP states that the original lockdowns were reasonable but then complains about continued lockdowns, and my comment was responding to that sentiment.

You're making an entirely different argument -- that lockdowns were always unreasonable.

> Pretell: where exactly did lockdowns work? Surely not in East Asia where multiple countries are experiencing exponential growth in covid cases right now due to seasonality. Despite widespread adoption of masking, contact tracing, etc. Certainly not in Sweden, where they never implemented them, yet they continue to have either middling or above average results in terms of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths.

This is probably one of the least intellectually humble/curious things I've ever seen someone write on hacker news.

There's an entire literature base being developed on exactly this question, and the answer is very clearly "it's complicated". For each of your examples I can give a counter-example, and that exchange would be completely specious and unscientific political punditry. This is not a question that can or should be effectively litigated in the comment section of a hacker forum by armchair epidemiologists, at least not without thousands of hours invested. And certainly not helpful if not entered into as an honest search for truth without preconceptions.

I don't feed trolls.

> This is probably one of the least intellectually humble/curious things I've ever seen someone write on hacker news.

Goodness. Unfortunately, you'll be positively devastated to learn that this exact discussion has been ongoing in countless threads here for over a year.

> There's an entire literature base being developed on exactly this question, and the answer is very clearly "it's complicated"

It's not that complicated. We have enough data at this point to start revealing signals where they exist. So far, there is some evidence that individual behaviors (e.g., masking, physical distancing) can have positive effects. There is also increasingly strong evidence that state-imposed controls (e.g., lockdowns and mask mandates) have not significantly affected the long-term course of the pandemic.

> This is not a question that can or should be effectively litigated in the comment section of a hacker forum by armchair epidemiologists, at least not without thousands of hours invested.

If your constitution cannot abide listening to people discuss this (or any) topic without first completing your requisite thousands of hours of research, I might gently suggest that HN isn't a safe place for you.

I marvel at OP's ability to make sweeping claims via a wall of text in an HN comment section, then refuse to respond to criticism. Fascinating.

I bill $850/hr, if you want the conversation that badly ;) otherwise, the audience is approximately zero and you aren’t interested in being convinced, so what would even be the point?

Why would I pay you anything? You're still here attempting to defend yourself. Free of charge.

They're refering to the money they make at their day job. This person seems fond of telling their HN audience about their high income. It usually only comes up in job- or tax-related threads though.

I love your comment above, nate. And your dedication to refuting this individual. But I have to offer this in response to their comment:

I have the opportunity of a lifetime for anyone who pays u/throwawaygh $850 per hour for any type of work.

I own a beautiful bridge in Brooklyn. It's all yours for the right price. I'd love to talk to you about it.

I have the opportunity of a lifetime for anyone who pays u/throwawaygh $850 per hour for any type of work.

I own a beautiful bridge in Brooklyn. It's all yours for the right price. I'd love to talk to you about it.

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