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Comment by DiogenesKynikos | Hacker News Reader

A fair number of countries did have lockdowns that successfully eliminated (as in: completely eliminated the virus within their borders) the virus within weeks. China is the elephant in the room (local elimination by about April 2020), but there are several other countries that did the same thing (such as New Zealand, Australia, Vietnam, Singapore, Taiwan).

On the assumption that you're an American, your country was not organized enough to couple a lockdown with effective contact tracing and mass testing, which is what other countries did to eliminate the virus.

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Yep. Australian here. We successfully brought our case numbers down a number of times through expensive, city wide lockdowns. Each time we succeeded and then opened back up, the virus unfortunately found a new route in the country and case numbers went up again.

If the whole world had adopted this strategy, covid would have been eliminated from the planet entirely.

Lots of lives were still saved by our strategy because almost everyone had a chance to get vaccinated before getting covid.

Even with the benefit of hindsight, its still controversial whether the lockdowns were worth it overall. But they were definitely effective at containing covid.

It's also with noting that there were other zero-CoVID countries that were able to maintain control of the virus with less significant lockdowns. The key was early detection of new outbreaks and effective, rapid contact tracing.

Between the initial outbreak and Omicron (roughly, April 2020 - March 2022), most people in China never experienced a lockdown, because each new outbreak was controlled locally before it could spread to the rest of the country.

Australia became a full on prison colony. They didn’t contain covid, they imprisoned their entire population.

I understand why you believe that. Plenty of other Australians think likewise (including most of my Australian friends who live overseas).

And yet, in my home state of Victoria, the state premier behind the lockdowns was reelected after covid with a huge majority. It seems like the way the story unfolded for people inside of Victoria was very different to how the story was told everywhere else.

I am trapped inside of Victoria, unfortunately. I wholeheartedly agree with GP poster. We saw visitor bans, curfews, work permits, arrests, rubber bullets and riot gear police deployed as "epidemiological" measures. My respect for police and public service in general went right out the door. Now there is only fear. Biggest regret of my life to settle down here. The huge majority electing the same person only solidifies my view that they may just be the different biological species. The "premier" spared no expense in making the event all about him and only him - just check the Wikipedia page [0].

That's a feat no other leader in any world's jurisdiction even attempted to. I don't know if it is another "red shirts" undertaking or a sycophantic "grass roots" movement - wouldn't be surprised with both, but just don't care at the moment. Seeking an exit of Victoria, but the most likely one for me will be out of existence.

If you think public support validates the "measures", check another example of similar landslide victory - election in Belarus of 1994. That win was as democratic as they get, I am telling you as a first-hand witness. The support was very genuine, for at least a decade to come. As for myself and my family - we feel that we escaped that hellhole only to land in a worse one... where there is no escape from.

0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Victoria

> city wide lockdowns ... If the whole world had adopted this strategy, covid would have been eliminated from the planet entirely.

Did you know that covid can infect many other mammals? Here's a summary of the science on this: [0]

> appears that many if not most mammalian ACE-2 receptors are susceptible

> the virus has gone from humans to the animals and back again to human

> found signs of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 in significant percentages of six urban wildlife species

> found signs of the pathogen infecting 17 percent of New York City sewer rats tested

> Exposure could also occur following interactions with pets such as cats and dogs

Does your belief that city wide lockdowns could be used to eliminate covid take the above into account? Wouldn't covid continue to spread in other mammals and reinfect humans again?

I don't know that any experts ever said that lockdowns could eliminate covid. From where did you get such an idea?

[0] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/how-so-ma...

It's not a "belief." It's a fact that was repeated in many cities - and countries - in the real world.

China completely eliminated CoVID-19 from its population in early 2020, and a bunch of other countries did the same.

The post I replied to said that if the world had adopted city wide lockdowns covid "would have been eliminated from the planet entirely". I objected that this doesn't account for covid in animal populations. Your reply mentioning China in 2020 doesn't address that objection.

Are you saying that you agree with the original poster, that city wide lockdowns could have eliminated covid from entire planet?

Even if every person in the world were isolated for weeks, so that covid no longer existed in the human population, many animal species would still carry covid, like rats [0] and pets like cats and dogs [1], and humans would become reinfected again.

Unless perhaps we destroy all those animals? And deer, and minks, and bats, and perhaps a few dozen other species [2]. Bats carry hundreds of different coronavirises and spillovers happen all the time [3]. There's evidence that Omicron evolved in mice then jumped back into humans [4]. It doesn't seem possible to eliminate covid from all those animals, does it?

That's why city wide lockdowns could never -eliminate- covid from the planet, as the original poster stated. They could only temporarily suppress covid in human populations. Like what happened in countries that did impose lockdowns. Temporary.

Here's what the scientists say:

> The coronavirus’ ability to infect so many different animals, and to spread within some of those populations, is worrying news: It means there’s virtually no chance the world will ever be rid of this particularly destructive coronavirus, scientists said. [5]

I assume that some people don't want to face the fact that diseases spread between animals and people and there's nothing we can do about it, and that scares them. Some people get so afraid they would do anything, even the impractical, to believe they retain some measure of control. They might not want to face facts that conflict with their fears. Not everyone thinks this way.

[0] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/how-so-ma...

[1] https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/e...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_that_can_get_S...

[3] https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/02/20/8077428...

[4] https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/covid-19-did-omicr...

[5] https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2023-06-09/coronavirus...

Lockdown may have made sense as a strategy to vaccines and treatments in place. To abolish the virus? It could never have worked. I mean, tell me how likely do you think it would have been that every country could have done something like that, in synchrony?

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