01-28-2021, 09:26 PM
(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. '
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).
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.
The USA failed to contain the covid virus because, unlike before, Trump and the Republicans had shut down the response teams and methods for containing it that had been built by Obama, Susan Rice, Dr. Fauci, etc. Then they called it a hoax that would just go away, even though Trump knew it was serious, and would not, giving as an excuse that to tell the truth "would cause a panic." You cannot shift the blame from Trump, as you Republicans would love to do. He blew it. He did not establish a national plan, using the NWPA to combat the virus with tests, quarantines, masks, closures of gatherings and other measures, but left it to states without any funds to do it. His Republican governors in Florida, Texas, Georgia, Arizona, etc. made sure that the people had no protection and no means of dealing with the virus. When lockdowns did happen, they helped. But Trump and the Republican extremists politicized the virus and made mask wearing a Democratic Party behavior, and held super-spreader events, and that's why the virus came back during travel season after some small declines and killed more than twice as many as should have died.
The containment measures worked in some countries, including some democracies, where people have an awareness of collective needs, but the USA is a huge libertarian country. When the virus came here, it said "oh boy, yum yum! A libertarian country! We'll just be allowed in! No-one will help each other; they are all individualists! They believe in "freedom" and "self-reliance" OH BOY!"