The Maelstrom of Violence

[David Horn]

(01-27-2021, 06:16 PM)mamabug Wrote:

(01-27-2021, 05:35 PM)David Horn Wrote: Intent of the work aside, I agree that the Chinese are inherently secretive and worse when they have exposure.  Nonetheless, it says a lot about us that we are still chest deep in this pandemic, while Wuhan is more or less back to normal.

I would argue that it says 'flatten the curve' worked as intended.  If a new disease comes out that X% of the population is not immune to, then once that disease becomes endemic it is impossible to prevent that X% from catching it without an intervention such as a vaccine.  The disease will continue to spread until it has reached everyone who is not immune, unless they die first.  Basic epidemiology.

Flatten the curve was never intended (before it became political) to stop X% from catching COVID, it was intended to make sure the rate of infection remained low enough that hospitals were not overwhelmed (like in Wuhan).  It meant it would take longer to reach the full set of non-immune people, but nobody would die due to lack of resources.  Once vaccines became feasible, there was the possibility of reducing that X% by a significant factor to reduce the actual volume under the curve.

In Wuhan, the original strain of COVID ran unchecked and reached close the full number of non-immune people available within a short period of time.  The rest of the world is deep in the pandemic because we made the choice to spread out our infections over time.  Now, whether this will change if the new strains are significantly different enough from the original to cause reinfection is a different issue that nobody knows enough about to say for sure.  FWIW, a lot of people predicted this would occur back in the first stage of lockdowns - Coronavirus' tend to mutate and any immunity conferred by infection only lasts about 18 months.

Wuhan never got that deep, and China, as a whole, is still way behind us. Even more to the point, both Australia and New Zealand managed to stop COVID in its tracks. South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan were also successful. It's not pretty, but it can be done -- assuming a willing citizenry. Those Asian nations had to deal with SARS, and learned from the experience.

mamabug Wrote:There is a solid argument to be made that lockdowns have made things worse, but I doubt we will really know until someone does a good study about a decade from now.  The trouble with being in the midst of it is politicians are averse to accepting visible risks that people can lay at their doorstep, but have no problem with accepting the hidden risks (like higher suicide rates of children with no social outlets).

We already know. It's not 'knowing' that's the problem. It's the 'doing'.

mamabug Wrote:Also, last thought, it is easier to control a pandemic when you can weld people into their houses or disappear them to a concentration camp. 

If people are going to risk everything for short term gain, it's not likely that anything short of martial law will stop them from being stupid.