The necessity of lockdowns during the pandemic

[BaileyB]

19 minutes ago, elaine567 said:

Plenty healthy younger people have ended up on ventilators in ITU or dead, so best not to be too complacent.
Second wave 1918 flu killed the old and infirm yes but it also changed and ran rife in the 20-40yo age group causing millions to die.

Indeed, the second wave hit the younger folk and it was much more deadly.
And let’s not forget, a significant portion of hospital admissions are those under 50. Nobody is immune. Everyone is at risk. Those who are older tend to have the worst outcomes but young people are dying too...

[clia]

The second wave in 1918 was horrendous for a number of reasons -- the virus had mutated and become more deadly, there was a huge lack of healthcare workers due to the war, soldiers carried it all over the world, lack of sanitary conditions, medical research was at a completely different place than it is now, as well as lack of social distancing.  The reality is that we don't know a lot about this virus, and we don't know what is going to happen next.  It would be great if we could keep everyone inside and safe, but we just can't do that.  Lifting restrictions and seeing what happens is the next logical step.  We should get an idea of the impact from some of the countries in Europe who have started to lift their restrictions.

 

[Redhead14]

I agree that we should watch what's happening in the other countries and observe that for a while before we relax here.  A lot of places are opening in two weeks . . . not enough time to observe.  Lifting restrictions would be the next logical step if we took the first logical step and stayed on that step until the people who are the experts about the virus and our health give the OK instead of letting the people who are worried about their wallets and/or never had to do without and worried that they might have to give up their cable TV or cut down on their data plans or stop going to Starbucks for $6.00 coffees every day, etc.  decide what should be done.

[elaine567]

8 minutes ago, clia said:

soldiers carried it all over the world

Yes but in our modern world we don't need soldiers to carry it all over the world...

[BaileyB]

For the young who think they are immune or will recover with no problems if they get the virus, there is evidence today that the virus is causing problems with blood clotting in younger individuals. They are noting young people who are suffering strokes. And, of course there is the case of the broadway singer who had a leg amputated this week because he had a blood clot in his leg that could not be resolved with medication. 

There is also an interesting article currently on the CNN website about the dire result when Denver lifted its lockdown prematurely in 1918. 

[FMW]

10 hours ago, Redhead14 said:

protesters complaining because they need a haircut or to get their nails done

Some of the few positive experiences I'm having right now due to the lock downs are never wearing makeup, keeping my nails short and unpolished, and not bothering to color some gray strands coming into my hair.  And wearing leggings and tshirt/sweatshirts all the time 😀  It's like my normal weekends on a loop.

When I'm out walking I don't get close enough to anyone for them to notice the little details, and when I go to the grocery store every 10 days or so my face is mostly covered with a mask.  Vanity is way down on my list of concerns at the moment.  At-home "spa" treatments are taking care of my girly needs for now. 

[BaileyB]

Anderson Coopers interview with the mayor of Las Vegas is a perfect example of the ignorance that will cost thousands of lives if the lockdown ends prematurely without a deliberate plan to safely reopen to business. 

Edited April 23, 2020 by BaileyB

[NuevoYorko]

2 hours ago, BaileyB said:

Anderson Coopers interview with the mayor of Las Vegas is a perfect example of the ignorance that will cost thousands of lives if the lockdown ends prematurely without a deliberate plan to safely reopen to business. 

Holy svit.

[Curious-Sam]

13 hours ago, Redhead14 said:

I agree that we should watch what's happening in the other countries and observe that for a while before we relax here.  A lot of places are opening in two weeks . . . not enough time to observe. 

I agree in the US this would be the smart move. The European Union is in the process of relaxing their lock down measures now. In Germany some services began reopening there this week. Hair dressers, car dealers, small shops etc. They are now enforcing as law the requirement to wear protective face masks when leaving the house from Monday. They have a very clear phased plan to slowly reopen selected services - and then monitor the effect it has before easing restrictions any further. This is being uniformly applied across all states concurrently to make sure you don't get one state being a cowboy and ruining the work done by all the others.

I think the US would be wise to follow a similar path. The question is with the fractured political state in the US can it get agreements and buy in from all the states create and follow a smart, gradual unified plan. Really putting the first part of the countries name to the test - United.

Edited April 23, 2020 by Curious-Sam

[elaine567]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/23/vietnam-lifts-lockdown-country-97-million-bordering-china-recorded/
This is how you manage a pandemic.
Nice graph of the 1918 pandemic and a summary of the "easing" or not of the lockdowns in Europe too.

And a great pic of a Vietnamese dog wearing sunglasses

 

[schlumpy]

56 minutes ago, elaine567 said:

And a great pic of a Vietnamese dog wearing sunglasses

I couldn't read the whole article without the requirement of subscribing to the Telegraph which is fair enough.

I agree this is worth investigating if only for future use. Keep in mind that their success may be because of certain elements of Vietnamese society that do not have an analog in the west. It could be infrastructure, behavioral, cultural or something I'm not aware of.

I do understand dogs in sunglasses though. Perhaps that was the secret to their success - a sense of humor. 

 

[carhill]

Day one of Georgia re-opening in progress. Fortunately the CDC mothership in Atlanta continues to work 24/7 to monitor.

In other news, apparently Chris Cuomo, Andy's brother, and a cyclist got into it when he left lockdown to do some public stuff. Tucker Carlson interviews the bicyclist. I haven't been following the details but apparently Cuomo has tested positive for -19. Hope he gets better soon.

 

[OatsAndHall]

My two cents on the topic:

I don't think a mandated lock down would have been necessary in my state if people had followed the original social distancing suggestions. In the weeks leading up to the mandated lock down, it was just "business as usual" for the majority of people. People around here were packing the bars and restaurants even as cases started to jump up. I was actively avoiding the restaurants but did order take out one night as a treat; that place was at capacity and we had COVID cases in the county.. I was only in the restaurant for a few minutes but could hear people coughing and sniffling..

I was shopping at a grocery store with signs everywhere asking people to social-distance,  wash their hands, use hand sanitizer, cover their coughs (etc). I still had some guy standing literally a foot behind me in line, sniffling and coughing; he got bent out of shape when I asked him to step back. I stopped by a local Walgreens that same day for some stuff I watched a woman cough into her hands and touch bottle after bottle of vitamins... I turned around and left.   I mean, that's disgusting without the pandemic going on...

I'm libertarian (for the most part) and am not a fan of government intervention. But, I took no issue with the stay-at-home order, simply because I saw how friggin' irresponsible people were being. The science behind this bug doesn't lie; it's highly contagious, there's no treatment or vaccine and it can result in a serious illness. People just wouldn't look at that and take some basic precautions (other than buying enough TP to last them the next three decades).

 

 

 

[Foxhall]

 banning of all public gatherings, closure of the majority of workplaces, bars, restaurants, schools, cinemas etc, and practicing of  social distancing should be sufficient restrictions,

these "lockdowns" effectively confining people to within a small radius of their homes with penalties for breach -this is a step to far and is too much of an encroachment on our personal freedom, 

 

 

[basil67]

@Foxhall death is also a bit of an encroachment on our personal freedoms.   

Anyway, what size radius are you talking about?   Are there adequate grocery stores within the radius?   I'm trying to think of legitimate reasons to leave the radius...I assume the following would be permitted:

1. Caring for isolated relative

2. Working in essential services

Edited April 25, 2020 by basil67

[Foxhall]

Basil, yes travel for those reasons you mention plus care of livestock and medical is allowed, and yes grocery shopping if one is more remotely based,

otherwise there is a 2km restriction with us, I accept our stats are not great, but we are not as severely affected as our closest neighbours the UK, Spain, France and so on

  I think almost six weeks in, the measure has gone a step too far, I am not convinced that the risk/ reward return is good enough to justify this restriction,

mine is generally a minority viewpoint probably, but I feel something radically wrong with police stopping me from travelling a relatively short distance to visit friends or even if I was going alone to a favourite walking place I would be stopped,

Police can be out patrolling parks and watching for public gatherings but it should be left to people to make responsible choices and to be let live their lives.

 

[elaine567]

19 minutes ago, Foxhall said:

...It should be left to people to make responsible choices and to be let live their lives.

But they don't make responsible choices, they don't understand or they willingly flout the rules. Many in the UK over the past week are  being stupid and reckless, despite now over 20 000 dead in hospital and a similar number dead in care homes, hospices and at home...
The virus doesn't care a damn about personal freedoms. It just says "Thank you very much, you stupid human".
The risk is of a second wave and that may be the really scary one.  Seems  WHO is now suggesting no proven immunity.
If true those who have had it may get it again and there will likely be no vaccine. 
In 1918 the virus came back in its second wave and picked off the healthy 20-35yos as well as the very young and the old.
That is why lockdowns are in place and the world is shut down. We have no idea what this virus is capable of. 
There are no personal freedoms for the dead.

[basil67]

@Foxhall I agree that 2km is a very tight restriction.    Thing is though, here in Australia, we have laxer rules and as @elaine567 says, people don't make responsible choices.    Our beaches and exercise routes are far too crowded and the result is that we're having to shut them down because of stupidity.

[Philosopher]

8 hours ago, Foxhall said:

Basil, yes travel for those reasons you mention plus care of livestock and medical is allowed, and yes grocery shopping if one is more remotely based,

otherwise there is a 2km restriction with us, I accept our stats are not great, but we are not as severely affected as our closest neighbours the UK, Spain, France and so on

  I think almost six weeks in, the measure has gone a step too far, I am not convinced that the risk/ reward return is good enough to justify this restriction,

In the UK, in the weekend before the lockdown, people were routinely ignoring the social distancing advice, for example by having picnics in parks, congregating in takeaways or driving to their second homes in the countryside. From what I read something similar happened in France in the weekend before their lockdown. For these reasons I think most governments had little choice but to mandate people to stay at home. 

One reason for the restriction on how far you can exercise is that exercising too far from home may require people to drive to their place of exercise. Unnecessary driving increases the risk of breakdowns, which in turn gives another opportunity for the virus to spread during the interactions involved in fixing the car breakdown.

[some_username1]

On 4/22/2020 at 7:53 PM, elaine567 said:

The real problem here is not really the virus as is, as that is bad enough, but what may happen in the 2nd and further waves.
Before the lock down in the UK they estimated 3-10% of people were infected,
Now spread is being restricted, by the lockdown, but the virus is running wild in care homes and the death toll both in hospital and in care homes is still very big.
If  we let the population out free then it is going to run wild in the general population again.
Today at the press briefing the Medical Officer basically said unless a workable vaccine is developed or a medical cure is found, (both he thought unlikely in the next year), then we are in this for the long haul.
Plenty healthy younger people have ended up on ventilators in ITU or dead, so best not to be too complacent.
Second wave 1918 flu killed the old and infirm yes but it also changed and ran rife in the 20-40yo age group causing millions to die.
That I guess  is why we are in lockdown.
The experts I guess want it gone from the world before it has a chance to regroup.

U.K. figures say 9/10 deaths had underlying health issues, typically two or three and usually one is respiratory issues. So whilst young people are dying, healthy people suffering fatalities seems an insignificant proportion of the total number. It does sound like a nasty illness though even if you don’t require hospital treatment and I can’t say I am looking forward to contracting it....

.....But that being said something has to give because lockdown is already pushing people to the edge. Only one person of the many I chat to on WhatsApp is having a great time of it in the U.K. and he.’s an online gamer who lives on pot noodle so he’s been training for this for the last decade. Everyone else is struggling now with the loss of contact and in the last few days I’ve noticed the others in the other flats in the building I live in start to have guests round and have spoken to people who know people who work in the justice system who are tacitly admitting that there is an undercurrent of people who are quietly breaking lockdown all the time but not being caught. So it’s already happening.

You can’t sustain a lockdown unless you bring in martial law, in a country like the U.K. people won’t stand for it so whilst I sympathise with the idea that the government can’t talk about lifting restrictions because people will get carried away and break the lockdown people are going to break the lockdown anyway sooner or later, if it is managed by the government at least they can do it on their terms rather than exhaust Police resources trying to catch the rain by enforcing it by law. Saying “give us 30 more days” is far more likely to generate goodwill with us than not giving us any crumbs of positivity whilst we watch the rest of Europe open up with us not knowing if we will have jobs to go back to the longer this goes on.

The balancing of lives vs a functioning economy is awful, but necessary and there has to be a dispassionate view taken just like when sending men off to war to die for their country. This virus has killed and will kill more, that’s just the way it is unfortunately. At least the vast majority of those in the most at risk categories can make a choice of their own free will as to what chances they are willing to take: quit your job, claim unemployment and ride it out. There are bodies sprinting up all over the place to help the vulnerable in their communities so they don’t have to leave the house so the support networks are in place when everyone else goes back to work. There also seems to be a “survive at all costs” school of thought which advocates total lockdown primarily in order to protect the most vulnerable which fails to acknowledge the issue of whether survival is all it’s cracked up to be when you Eventually emerge, blinking, Into the light to find a first world country with a third world economy that makes the Great Depression look like a Disney film. At some point (and it’s coming soon, very soon for the U.K.) the economic damage and financial damage to tens of millions now and and hundreds of millions of future generations has to be weighed against the potential loss of hundreds of thousands/low millions the vast majority of whom had under-lying health issues anyway. It’s absolutely terrible to talk in those terms but there is a lot of talk that is is a war and during wartime difficult decisions have to be made for the greater good. And “the greater good” has to be front and centre of the decision making.

[OatsAndHall]

12 hours ago, Foxhall said:

 banning of all public gatherings, closure of the majority of workplaces, bars, restaurants, schools, cinemas etc, and practicing of  social distancing should be sufficient restrictions,

these "lockdowns" effectively confining people to within a small radius of their homes with penalties for breach -this is a step to far and is too much of an encroachment on our personal freedom, 

 

 

I agree; I don't think that level of restriction is necessary. I misunderstood how people are defining "lock down". Here in the U.S., people are referring to banning of public gatherings, work closures, school closures, (etc) as a "lock down".  Which is why some of us in the States are bent out of shape over the protests in some area; the restrictions really aren't that confining.

Edited April 26, 2020 by OatsAndHall

[elaine567]

48 minutes ago, some_username1 said:

whilst we watch the rest of Europe open up

But they are in a far different place from us as regards the virus.
They have been testing and contact tracing and tracking and have been in more severe lockdowns and have a greater handle on the disease.
We have been "playing" at it since the start and it is coming home to roost.
Pussy footing around for fear of upsetting the population. Weeks behind the curve.
Meanwhile the deaths and new cases stay the same despite our version of the "lockdown".
We do not really know the number of new cases as our testing regime is woefully inadequate.
But the number of new cases reported today match the number of new cases reported weeks ago, so I guess the death rates are not going to fall for a long time yet.
 

[some_username1]

10 minutes ago, elaine567 said:

But they are in a far different place from us as regards the virus.
They have been testing and contact tracing and tracking and have been in more severe lockdowns and have a greater handle on the disease.
We have been "playing" at it since the start and it is coming home to roost.
Pussy footing around for fear of upsetting the population. Weeks behind the curve.
Meanwhile the deaths and new cases stay the same despite our version of the "lockdown".
We do not really know the number of new cases as our testing regime is woefully inadequate.
But the number of new cases reported today match the number of new cases reported weeks ago, so I guess the death rates are not going to fall for a long time yet.
 

They may well not do, but can you see lockdown being respected into summer? I can’t, not in the U.K., not unless martial law is imposed (and I wouldn’t totally rule that out).

We have one of the most incompetent governments we’ve ever had in charge at one of the biggest times of crisis in our history. When you have incompetents dithering at the wheel it is going to be tough to earn the respect of the country long enough to impose a long term lockdown. If they don’t have a plan to exit lockdown the public will form the government’s plan for them.

[OatsAndHall]

All and all, I find it incredible that more countries aren't taking South Korea's lead. They poured their resources into testing, had the ability to track the virus transmission and seem to be well ahead of the rest of the world with regards to returning to a state of semi-normalcy. Yes, they had their lock-downs and quarantines but the level of testing they did slowed this down to a crawl.

[elaine567]

@some_username1 Long term lockdown has been hinted at by the scientists and frankly unless this virus  decides to pack up and leave by itself I see no other solution.
As for the govt., dithering is the word and they don't have the cohones to lead the population out of this with clear messages.
The population would follow a good leader over a cliff, if they thought it would help but with bad leadership and fuzzy instructions they make their own minds up and do what they want.
The media doesn't help, they keep plugging the easing message and telling us all how unhappy we are under the lockdown...
They need to stop that IMO. They are inciting rebellion. 
All very well that conflict makes for headlines and news but now is not the time or the place
If things get really desperate then I agree martial law on some level is probably a given.