Australia: 82K tests, 111 cases, 1 death, 900.000 people locked down
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Today in Sydney (22/7/21, 11:01 am) we had:
- 85K tests
- 124 cases
- 48 in community whilst infectious (39%)
This on top of the absolute destruction of liberty over 124 cases of a disease with a 2% hospitalization rate and less than 1% fatality rate across all ages and heavily slanted towards old, fat, and diabetic people, in a city with millions, is an absolute tragedy for freedom and it's frankly absurd
In March 2020 the "two weeks to flatten the curve" was perhaps acceptable because we didn't know much about COVID and it might have been an existential threat.
Now we know it's not one but power hungry governments won't let it go, and sites like this one censor you if you disagree..
Shit I'll only use throwaways on this site because I don't want to get blackballed for saying that the only thing lockdowns do is cause deaths of despair
if you are not very familiar with what has happened in those two countries specifically then it's best not to make foolish generlisations.
This is a very strong narrative in the U.S. media to excuse the fact that we had a chance to do the right thing but didn't. When the political leadership realized that we were utterly unprepared and the Trump presidency would refuse to act in a meaningful way and Republicans would never accept blame for being in power without a solution, it had to turn into "it wasn't a solution and it just hurt economy." This is despite the in-your-face fact that many countries successfully used lockdowns to stop COVID in its tracks.
You have to realize that there is tremendous amount of censorship going on in the U.S. by a lack of reporting in general media. COVID is the ultimate in confirmation bias porn and is making the media companies lots of clicks. Many Americans are now addicted to various narratives on all sides; and, if they see something that contradicts their position they immediately throw the narrative out and/or straw man you that you're on the other side.
I can say that many of us Americans lament that freedom once meant "the ability to work together as we each see fit for the good ourselves and the common of good of the next generation" and now freedom equates to narcissistic goals at any justification and cost.
I'm sorry, but your take is just incorrect and worthy of downvoting.
I'm typing this in the office without a mask because I'm vaccinated. I'm also going to nightclubs, bowling, travelling internationally to most places I like.
Lockdowns do slow the transmission of the virus. However some lockdowns are more effective than others.
I am an Australian, and I live in a country which has been in lockdown for somewhere around 500 days. While it is difficult to prove what would have happened if the country here did not go into lockdown, I can honestly say that the lockdown here hasn't been highly effective, as there are still 1000s of cases a day and high levels of community transfer. I would say things would have been worse.
I would rather be in lockdown in Australia than here, there are many safety nets in Australia which while life might be difficult in these times prevent what happens like people starving to death. These don't reflect on the effectiveness of the lockdown, but rather the effectiveness of the management of the lockdown.
There is also the mentality of the citizens, lockdowns are less effective when the citizens are less compliant or due to certain government stances. Take one of the areas here, you can travel there and you only have to go into quarantine for 7 days if you are vaccinated, no consideration to the fact that you can still get infected by the virus when you are vaccinated and can still transmit it.
To sum up, are lockdowns effective and the answer is yes if they are done effectively. Do lockdowns impact on personal freedoms, yes they do if they are done effectively or not. Do lockdowns have social and economic impacts, yes they do and so does not having a lockdown.
Whether on this case it is worth it is debatable, but I disagree with your opinion that it is absolutely not worth it.
And given the less-than-spectacular vaccine rollout, you can probably justify lockdowns that just delay the pandemic by a month or so, since a month is a huge number of vaccinated people. Also since Australia didn’t get a round of natural infection from the previous virus variants, they are looking at the full R of the delta variant without the reduction multiplier of e.g 0.7 that a country with 30% antibodies would have a (assuming no reinfections and neutralizing immunity which is optimistic). Delta could easily overwhelm healthcare without lockdowns there.
That said, I’d expect there to be a pretty vivid debate about what the cost (in lives, and money which is also eventually lives if it’s public money) is of the lockdowns.
Because other than the delay argument - which is valid - locking down to prevent a few thousand dead isn’t sensible or logical unless the same should happen for a bad flu season.
I hear this assumption a lot but actually, you do. Australia's lockdowns and quarantines aren't limited to the international borders. Victoria is currently quarantined from South Australia and New South Wales. Victoria's granularity [0] is what I'd say is approximately equivalent to US counties.
That "county" granularity isn't just theoretical. During one of the longest lockdowns, Melbourne, Victoria's capital city, was cut off from the rest of the state. Imagine cutting off LA or the Bay Area from the rest of California and that's essentially what happened.
This also happened briefly in the EU. Despite Schengen, free travel was suspended and most of the national borders were closed.
In both cases (Australian states and Schengen), cross-border commuters and freight were generally permitted to continue but were regulated.
[0]: https://www.coronavirus.vic.gov.au/victorian-travel-permit-s...
Our economy is bumping along nicely and the general state of the place is pretty solid.
The alternative has been exemplified in Europe, you can wait longer to have more cases and deaths, and a longer lock-down to get out of the mess.
and yet still the envy of most the developed nations....
Covid is going to screw us all. I prefer our decision to manage how we get screwed, rather than the UK/US examples of "Some of you may die, I'm willing to accept that loss"
Just keep in mind Australia has, unfortunately, low vaccination (< 15%) due to low supply. The low case numbers are due to the sharp lockdowns. The sharp regional lockdowns are to contain the virus so the rest of the country stays relatively free of the virus. Things have been relatively "normal" outside of the lockdowns.
When we had to about face, the alternates were not readily available. :-(
If you’re younger you can (and are highly encouraged to) speak with your health professional and still obtain it.
australia has low vaccination rates, low immunity due to avoiding massive disaster last year and so is using (hopefully) short lockdowns again to extinguish the spread within the country.
what's the "satire"? is the suggestion that instead australia should just do nothing at let ~1% of people die and the healthcare system collapse?