Posted on 09/04/2020 5:41:36 AM PDT by Kaslin
To that nagging question, the answer increasingly seems to be yes.
Certainly, they were a novelty. As novelist Lionel Shriver writes, "We've never before responded to a contagion by closing down whole countries." As I noted in May, the 1957-58 Asian flu killed between 70,000 and 116,000 Americans, between 0.04% and 0.07% of the nation's population. The 1968-70 Hong Kong flu killed about 100,000, 0.05% of the population.
The U.S. coronavirus death toll of 186,000 is 0.055% of the current population. It will go higher, but it's about the same magnitude as those two flus, and it has been less deadly to those under 65 than the flus were. Yet there were no statewide lockdowns; no massive school closings; no closings of office buildings and factories, restaurants and museums. No one considered shutting down Woodstock.
Why are attitudes so different today? Perhaps we have greater confidence in government's effectiveness. If public policy can affect climate change, it can stamp out a virus.
Plus, we're much more risk-averse. Children aren't allowed to walk to school; jungle gyms have vanished from playgrounds; and college students are shielded from microaggressions. We have a "safetyism mindset," as Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff write in "The Coddling of the American Mind," under which "many aspects of students' lives needed to be carefully regulated by adults, and that it was far better to overreact to potential risks and threats than to underreact."
So the news of the COVID-19 virus killing dozens and overloading hospitals in Bergamo, Italy, triggered a flight to safety and restriction. Many Americans stopped going to restaurants and shops even before the lockdowns were ordered in March and April. The exaggerated projections of some epidemiologists, with a professional interest in forecasting pandemics, triggered demands that governments act.
The legitimate fears that hospitals would be overwhelmed apparently explain the (in retrospect, deadly) orders of the governors of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Michigan requiring elderly care facilities to admit COVID-infected patients. And the original purpose to "flatten the curve" segued into "stamp out the virus."
But the apparent success of South Korea and island nations -- Taiwan, Singapore, New Zealand -- in doing so could never be replicated in the continental, globalized United States.
Governors imposing continued lockdowns claimed to be "following the science." But only in one dimension: reducing the immediate number of COVID-19 cases. The lockdowns also prevented cancer screenings, heart attack treatment and substance abuse counseling, the absence of which resulted in a large but hard-to-estimate number of deaths. What Haidt and Lukianoff call "vindictive protectiveness" turned out to be not very protective.
Examples include shaming beachgoers though outdoor virus spread is minimal; extending school closedowns though few children get or transmit the infection; closing down gardening aisles in superstores; and barring church services while blessing inevitably noisy and crowded demonstrations for politically favored causes.
The new thinking on lockdowns, as Greg Ip reported in The Wall Street Journal last week, is that "they're overly blunt and costly." That supports President Donald Trump's mid-April statement that, "A prolonged lockdown combined with a forced economic depression would inflict an immense and wide-ranging toll on public health."
For many, that economic damage has been of Great Depression proportions. Restaurants and small businesses have been closed forever, even before the last three months of "mostly peaceful" urban rioting. Losses have been concentrated on those with low income and little wealth, while the lockdowns have added tens of billions to the net worth of Amazon's Jeff Bezos and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg.
Attitudes on lockdowns are highly correlated with partisan politics. Democrats tend to be more risk-averse and want lockdowns continued until there's a vaccine. Republicans are less risk-averse and want most restrictions lifted.
As a result, since governors and mayors make these decisions, it's heavily Democratic central cities -- New York, Washington, Los Angeles, San Francisco -- whose civic fabric is being rent and cultural capital is left in ruins, with much less devastation in the exurbs and countryside.
This fouling your own nest extends to voting. Many more Democrats than Republicans want to vote by mail, even though the risk of voter error or non-counting is higher than for those, most of them Republicans, who want to vote in person.
The anti-lockdown blogger (and former New York Times reporter) Alex Berenson makes a powerful case that lockdowns delayed, rather than prevented, infections, and that current plunging hospitalization and death rates suggest we're approaching herd immunity, where the virus will fade out for lack of new targets.
There are old lessons here, ready to be relearned. Governments can sometimes channel but never entirely control nature. There is no way to entirely eliminate risk. Attempts to reduce one risk may increase others. Amid uncertainty, people make mistakes. Like, maybe, the lockdowns.
Were the Lockdowns a Mistake?
the TWO WEEKS they originally said they wanted to get ready, were not. Everything else, yes.
I stopped right there. First, it is not a nagging question. Second, the answer does not "seem". It is yes, and it has definitively been yes from the very beginning. There has been no question about it. Period.
Far too many people, including many Fearpers, seem (see, I can use that word too) to think it is a good idea to trade freedom and liberty for a false sense of security. It isn't even real security. They are still afraid.
What a pathetic way to live a life, being afraid of every little thing.
The cause of this is a reliance on government. Individualism is dead to many Americans. If you have someone carry you around for too long you are no longer able to walk. That's exactly what is happening. People do not take individual responsibility in many parts of their lives, so now they must take "collective" responsibility. They are closet socialist, many of them calling themselves conservatives. They just don't know how weak and cowardly they are. They are unable to stand up for freedom and liberty.
When I write unable to stand up, that is a metaphor, it's not physical, it is mental. They are weak in the mind. Weak in principles. Weak in personal responsibility. Weak in faith.
I have written many times from the beginning of this political hoax that people need to take personal responsibility for their health and safety. Certainly, if one has a compromised immune system they have a personal responsibility to extra precautions for many things, even the yearly seasonal flu. The ChiCom flu is no different. However, they should not destroy the economy, shutter businesses, wipe away people's livelihoods, dreams, and their freedoms and liberties.
We are not getting back the freedoms and liberties that we have lost. Every time we sacrifice freedom and liberty for security we permanently lose the freedom and liberty. We are always told it is only temporary, like bending the curve or to fight terrorism. We have been fighting terrorism for 20+ years and we gave up all sorts of liberties that we will never get back. There was another way to obtain security from terrorism and there certainly was another way to obtain security from the ChiCom flu. In both cases, we did not need to lose our freedoms
So if you are Fearper, shame on you. You are a weak coward, unable to take personal responsibility. You are part of the problem. You want collective responsibility. You are nothing more than a closet socialist. You are the enemy because you stole our freedom and liberty.
COVID-19 was a test for America. We failed miserably.
I knew this country was doomed when I saw how many FREEPERS (of all people) felt a need to get on this website and scold their fellow citizens for refusing to shut down their lives and hide under their beds.
Of course they were a mistake, an ONGOING MISTAKE!
That depends...what was someone trying to accomplish? If the mission was to flatten the economy and small businesses, hang up the banner. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!
So if you are Fearper, shame on you. You are a weak coward, unable to take personal responsibility. You are part of the problem. You want collective responsibility. You are nothing more than a closet socialist. You are the enemy because you stole our freedom and liberty.
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Well said and so very true.
***Republicans are less risk-averse and want most restrictions lifted.***
I’m not so certain I agree with the generalization here. Besides all the Fearpers out there, I know plenty of conservative Republicans in my own real world sphere who are quite risk averse because of CoVid. They approve of the shutdown, masks, and social distancing, and have no desire to go anywhere or do anything without masks and social distancing until there is a vaccine. They think a vaccine is the Holy Grail. It will save all of us!
It’s not that I think a vaccine won’t be helpful, it will be. It’s that these people don’t want to go back to old normal without masks and social distancing. The media has convinced them that they won’t get CoVid by using a mask or social distancing. Now, if you never go anywhere anymore, you might stay safe, but is that living? To each his own, I guess.
by all information at the time, we were looking at 1% of the population to be hospitalized. that would be 3-4m+ people when we only have 1m+ beds. that would’ve led to potentially millions dying without treatment.
once we started to see the whole picture... with a much smaller number hospitalized... then it became apparent we could have skipped the shutdown.
of course, by then you have a political trap.
open up and let the chips fall where they may, and the dems would jump on every death as Trump’s fault. Stay shutdown until we get enough exposed to insure minimal loss of life... and the economy gets hosed... which the dems will blame on Trump
the real question that should be asked is...
WHY was 0bama funding George Soro’s lab to create such a virus??
BOO!
How many Feapers jumped?
Big time mistake.
I was all political and still is. With covid infections and deaths declining the federal CMS and CDC are still ratcheting up restrictions.
Yep, in the beginning we were bombarded with all of the horror stories from Italy, and that’s what freaked people out.
Communist Democrats and their ABCCBSNBCNPR propaganda arm use the term "mistake" because no one is liable when it's a mistake but those who perpetrated this fraud need to be charged for EVERY death, injury, and bit of damage done.
Start with mass murderer Nursing Home Killer (NHK) New York Governor Andrew Cuomo who sent thousands to their death.
Is the Pope a Commie?
I’ve known, and all right-thinking people have known from the very beginning the lockdowns were wrong.
Now if you had asked if he is a Socialist, I would say perhaps. Because I am sure Socialists believe in GOD.
Very well put. Thanks.
Yes, BUT we can never REALLY know for sure because we can’t go back and NOT lock down. No do overs.
The “I want it NOW” crowd could never wait for a herd immunity scenario to fully play out.
We are where we are, deal with it.
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