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https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/13/business/economy/income-p...
Going back up now.
The real crux isn't whether some advocate for lower populations—clearly, many do—but the operational aspect: who executes, under what authority, and how? For instance, if a group of biologists and engineers aim to reduce Earth's population to 4 billion by 2400, the implications—like fewer children and potential space colonization—are vastly different than a group of anthropological philosophers striving for the same population count by 2033, which could necessitate more drastic measures.
These logistical issues, whether it's stealth tactics versus open methods or the necessity of opportunistic partnerships, remain conspicuously underexplored.
One of the key traits of conspiracy thinking is immunity-to-evidence:
"Conspiracy theories are inherently self-healing, evidence that counters a theory is re-interpreted as originating from the conspiracy. This reflects the belief that the stronger the evidence against a conspiracy (e.g., the FBI exonerating a politician from allegations of misusing a personal email server), the more the conspirators must want people to believe their version of events (e.g., the FBI was part of the conspiracy to protect that politician)"
In a broader international comparison, Sweden (and Europe generally) did not fare well. Countries that took a zero-CoVID approach, such as China, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam and Singapore ended up with much lower death rates, because most of them vaccinated their populations before allowing the virus to spread.
And socialized medicine.
Really, what a fine example for e.g. New York to follow!
>Using an event study approach and data from 43 countries and all U.S. states, we measure changes in excess deaths following the implementation of COVID-19 shelter-in-place (SIP) policies. We do not find that countries or U.S. states that implemented SIP policies earlier had lower excess deaths. We do not observe differences in excess deaths before and after the implementation of SIP policies, even when accounting for pre-SIP COVID-19 death rates.
And no, none of those field hospitals built in parking lots and stadiums everywhere were used, either. In Wales, for example, Millennium Stadium was converted into a temporary field hospital with 300 beds and capacity to expand to 2000 beds. It was such a big deal that a public contest was held to name it Dragon's Heart Hospital <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon%27s_Heart_Hospital>. However, said hospital never had more than 46 patients at one time, and was closed in six weeks for lack of use!
Even in NYC, which really did see overloaded hospitals briefly in March-April 2020, USNS Comfort treated a total of 179 patients. USNS Mercy treated a total of 77 patients in LA.
To your point (a), old-age homes should have been much better protected, but it's virtually impossible to shield them off when the virus is raging outside. The most effective way to protect the elderly would be to reduce transmission of the virus in society as a whole.
To your point (b), that's what happens in a pandemic. There's a completely new disease, and doctors don't know how to treat it effectively. Everyone is trying to do what they can, based on experience with treating other diseases. You can't base public health policy around a belief that doctors will instantly know the correct way of treating a pandemic disease. You have to take dramatic measures to reduce transmission in a situation like New York faced in early 2020.
You can see this most clearly in the zero-CoVID countries, which had dramatically lower death rates during the pandemic. Taiwan and China had virtually zero deaths for much of the pandemic, because they traced literally every infection chain and capped it off. They reopened after vaccinating most of their populations, which means that most people in those countries had a primed immune system when they first got infected. As we know from numerous studies, that dramatically reduces mortality.
The distance between topics has to be somewhere close to a world record!