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The Other Side of the Lockdown Argument

If apples are human lives and oranges are ongoing economic stability, then you are right.

I would argue in this case that the apples are more important than the oranges.
The apples are the direct victims of Covid. The oranges are victims of the shutdowns. Otherwise known as collateral damage.
 
Destroying the economy, throwing tens of millions into unemployment and poverty, has the long term effect of destroying healthcare while maximizing the need for healthcare. The lockdown crowd doesn't care how many people die or suffer now or in the future. Only that they don't die of covid-19. That is what the richest people and corporations on earth want them to think because the lockdown is massively profitable for them and a diversity from the exorbitant injustice of their ever increasing tax free wealth.
 
The apples are the direct victims of Covid. The oranges are victims of the shutdowns. Otherwise known as collateral damage.

Then it isn't apples to oranges. Victims are victims. So long as the victims of the shutdown are fewer than the victims of allowing unrestricted COVID-19 infection, then the shutdown is working. We should do whatever we can to prevent this collateral damage, however we should not end the lockdown in this scenario, since more people would die from the pandemic than are dying from a shutdown economy.
 
Then it isn't apples to oranges. Victims are victims. So long as the victims of the shutdown are fewer than the victims of allowing unrestricted COVID-19 infection, then the shutdown is working. We should do whatever we can to prevent this collateral damage, however we should not end the lockdown in this scenario, since more people would die from the pandemic than are dying from a shutdown economy.
In essence it appears that you’re saying it’s okay if I die as a result of the shutdown as long as you get to live because of them. But that can’t be what you’re saying. So I’ll just leave it as not understanding your point.
 
In essence it appears that you’re saying it’s okay if I die as a result of the shutdown as long as you get to live because of them. But that can’t be what you’re saying. So I’ll just leave it as not understanding your point.

Close. It is an acceptable sacrifice for you and I to die as a result of the shutdown if hundreds of thousands get to live in our stead. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
 
Close. It is an acceptable sacrifice for you and I to die as a result of the shutdown if hundreds of thousands get to live in our stead. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
Spock. Loved the show.
 
For the digestion of those who believe the only costs to COVID lockdowns are economic in nature, I've excerpted some of the more unsettling statistics.

Via Summit News (bold by me):

In an interview with German newspaper Handelsblatt, [Germany’s Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development, Gerd] Muller warned that the response to the global pandemic has resulted in “one of the biggest” hunger and poverty crises in history.

Muller warned that further damage will be done if draconian measures continue to be enacted by governments.

“We expect an additional 400,000 deaths from malaria and HIV this year on the African continent alone,” Muller emphasised, adding that “half a million more will die from tuberculosis.”

...

Muller’s comments come five months after a leaked study from inside the German Ministry of the Interior revealed that the impact of the country’s lockdown could end up killing more people than the coronavirus due to victims of other serious illnesses not receiving treatment. The findings dovetail with other research that has concluded lockdowns will conservatively “destroy at least seven times more years of human life” than they save.

As we have previously highlighted, in the UK there have already been up to 10,000 excess deaths as a result of seriously ill people avoiding hospitals due to COVID-19 or not having their hospital treatments cancelled.

Professor Richard Sullivan also warned that there will be more excess cancer deaths in the UK than total coronavirus deaths due to people’s access to screenings and treatment being restricted as a result of the lockdown.

His comments were echoed by Peter Nilsson, a Swedish professor of internal medicine and epidemiology at Lund University, who said, “It’s so important to understand that the deaths of COVID-19 will be far less than the deaths caused by societal lockdown when the economy is ruined.”

According to Professor Karol Sikora, an NHS consultant oncologist, there could be 50,000 excess deaths from cancer as a result of routine screenings being suspended during the lockdown in the UK.

...

As we further previously highlighted, a data analyst consortium in South Africa found that the economic consequences of the country’s lockdown will lead to 29 times more people dying than the coronavirus itself.

The article goes on to discuss the impacts of food/supply shortages, malnutrition, etc. Even worse, the impacts of the lockdowns are just getting started. The bottom line is that the decision to lock down the world in response to COVID may prove to be not only one of the costliest but also one of the deadliest mistakes of the 21st Century.

Food for thought. [emoji855]
Who is mueller?

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk
 
Everyone knows that a lockdown carried too far could be more damaging than the pandemic. But to date, NO lockdowns have been carried too far to my knowledge. The damage caused by current lockdowns has been outweighed by the lives saved by containing the spread of a deadly pandemic in areas where lockdowns are or were in effect. In fact, too many lockdowns have not gone far enough and were ended too early which has caused out of control spreading of the pandemic and needless deaths.
When you say "NO lockdowns have been carried too far to my knowledge", on what are you basing your knowledge? Were you aware of the figures being cited in the OP?

There is a balance to be struck, and most other countries and Democrat-controlled areas in the United States are doing the best they can to strike that balance. They are sacrificing some economic competitiveness to keep their citizens safe, which is the proper trade to make. It is the conservative majority Republican run areas and authoritarian countries that put money over people that are doing net damage to their constituents by sitting on their hands while a deadly pandemic is sweeping through and killing thousands.
I don't know what to say to this. I'll just mention that I don't want this thread to turn into another Republican-vs-Democrat row, and that any red v. blue infection map I've seen of the US shows no consistent distinction between red and blue states. There are some red and blue states dealing with very high infection rates, and there are some red and blue states dealing with very low infection rates.

Thank you for article. Consider, however, that
  1. The data is supplementary, not contradictory. That is, it doesn't contradict any of the statistics presented in the OP, it's just focused on quantifying the other side of the equation. Also, it's dated in early June, and a lot has happened since then.

  2. The conclusions in the paper being cited are based entirely on epidemiological modeling, which is the same modeling that predicted the US would have 1.5 million COVID deaths by the end of the year with its current strategy and that the deaths in Sweden would be 5x-10x times higher than have actually been observed. (Which is why I say that a lot has happened since June.) The analysis also presumes no second wave would emerge when the lockdowns lifted, which of course hasn't come to fruition.

    Hence while the modelers are doing the best they can, the data isn't matching their predictions, and one of the consequences of this is that the numbers on the far side of the equation--based on numbers we don't have to model--are looking a whole lot bigger by comparison.
 
When you say "NO lockdowns have been carried too far to my knowledge", on what are you basing your knowledge? Were you aware of the figures being cited in the OP?

I don't buy those figures and I don't trust your sources.

Summit News

You cited propaganda, not credible sources.
 
Who is mueller?

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk
It's "Muller". Gerd Muller is Germany’s Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development. I imagine a lot of ECD ministers are in a unique position to know all the things that normally happen that have been able to happen in a lockdown. Economic aid, food/medicine shipments, charity work, medical procedures, etc.--all the mundane things we take for granted that collectively save hundreds of thousands or even millions of lives.
 
I don't buy those figures and I don't trust your sources.

Summit News

You cited propaganda, not credible sources.
Yes, they link to their own article, but that article gives the English translation of the original article published in Tichys Einblick. It's not uncommon for blogs to chain citations in this way, and it doesn't bear on the validity on the original source of the material.
 
Yes, they link to their own article, but that article gives the English translation of the original article published in Tichys Einblick. It's not uncommon for blogs to chain citations in this way, and it doesn't bear on the validity on the original source of the material.

All of your sources are Summit News, though. I assume everything published by that source is false until I see it in a more credible publication.

Suffice it to say, people are not dying in droves due to lockdowns. They are dying in droves due to COVID-19. As long as this is the case, erring on the side of properly administered lockdowns are preferable to erring on the side of allowing a deadly pandemic to sweep through a population in order to avoid economic inconvenience.
 
All of your sources are Summit News, though. I assume everything published by that source is false until I see it in a more credible publication.
If you follow the links back to the originating data, comments, interviews, reports, etc., none of them originate at Summit News. Summit News is just an aggregator. They're not a think-tank.

As for your summary refusal to consider any fact or figure not published by "a more credible publication" (which I presume means a major newspaper), I consider this extremely unwise given today's media environment. But... filter how you will.

Suffice it to say, people are not dying in droves due to lockdowns.
This is precisely what the OP is contending, though. These are not spectacular deaths. They're deaths due to malnutrition, postponement of medical procedures, postponement of cancer screenings, lack of medicine, supply shortages, etc., but they're deaths nonetheless and they are occurring in "droves".

As long as this is the case, erring on the side of properly administered lockdowns are preferable to erring on the side of allowing a deadly pandemic to sweep through a population in order to avoid economic inconvenience.
As I say in the OP, I think the ex post facto numbers are going to shock the world as to just how many lives hinge on what you trivialize as "economic inconvenience".
 
When you say "NO lockdowns have been carried too far to my knowledge", on what are you basing your knowledge? Were you aware of the figures being cited in the OP?


I don't know what to say to this. I'll just mention that I don't want this thread to turn into another Republican-vs-Democrat row, and that any red v. blue infection map I've seen of the US shows no consistent distinction between red and blue states. There are some red and blue states dealing with very high infection rates, and there are some red and blue states dealing with very low infection rates.


Thank you for article. Consider, however, that
  1. The data is supplementary, not contradictory. That is, it doesn't contradict any of the statistics presented in the OP, it's just focused on quantifying the other side of the equation. Also, it's dated in early June, and a lot has happened since then.

  2. The conclusions in the paper being cited are based entirely on epidemiological modeling, which is the same modeling that predicted the US would have 1.5 million COVID deaths by the end of the year with its current strategy and that the deaths in Sweden would be 5x-10x times higher than have actually been observed. (Which is why I say that a lot has happened since June.) The analysis also presumes no second wave would emerge when the lockdowns lifted, which of course hasn't come to fruition.

    Hence while the modelers are doing the best they can, the data isn't matching their predictions, and one of the consequences of this is that the numbers on the far side of the equation--based on numbers we don't have to model--are looking a whole lot bigger by comparison.

There is plenty that is the same since June too. The Trumps Govt. still has not provided or implemented any plan for controlling the virus and we still have more cases than anyone else as well as 20% of the deaths. What is clear as day is that if we had implemented the same policies as other nations we would have had 10% of the deaths we now have. I am not interested in your death cult which believes that death is better than lockdowns and Covid 19 only kills those that would have died anyway.

How many needless Covid-19 deaths were caused by delays in responding? Most of them
 
If apples are human lives and oranges are ongoing economic stability, then you are right.

I would argue in this case that the apples are more important than the oranges.
I’m sure the Covid related unemployed appreciate your economics. After the election they are going to be left to die on the vine.
 
I think Europe is having a second Spike and if trends continue it's going to be worse than the first one. Second spikes might only be an artifact of lockdowns and procedures
Yes, and much of it is due to the insane idea of prematurely reopening schools and colleges, and expecting young people to behave as responsible adults; the majority of new cases are among 17-24 year-olds. Several Universities have imposed mandatory lockdowns and quarantines because kids prefer to party. These spikes were entirely predictable, and we now also have the prospect of hospitals having to deal with seasonal illnesses on top of the expected increase in Covid hospitalisations. Back to square one we go.
 
If you follow the links back to the originating data, comments, interviews, reports, etc., none of them originate at Summit News. Summit News is just an aggregator. They're not a think-tank.

Go ahead - follow the links from your original OP and show us WHICH study you are referring to specifically. When I follow the links I don't find them leading to the studies, but I do find them leading to a wonderful website called "lockdownsceptics.org", which I would not trust to interpret ANY kind of study.

Find us either English translation of the studies you talk about or a believable source who can interpret the numbers and then we can talk.

The conclusions in the paper being cited are based entirely on epidemiological modeling, which is the same modeling that predicted the US would have 1.5 million COVID deaths by the end of the year with its current strategy and that the deaths in Sweden would be 5x-10x times higher than have actually been observed. (Which is why I say that a lot has happened since June.) The analysis also presumes no second wave would emerge when the lockdowns lifted, which of course hasn't come to fruition.

Hence while the modelers are doing the best they can, the data isn't matching their predictions, and one of the consequences of this is that the numbers on the far side of the equation--based on numbers we don't have to model--are looking a whole lot bigger by comparison.

The OP references some papers (without links to them apparently) that it ALSO reference effectively some kind modeling, except it used its modelining twice - one time for how many deaths (years of life) covid preventative measures saved and another time for how many months were lost due to extra poverty. I.e. twice the opportunity to make large mistakes in their modeling.

Considering we don't really know what research papers YOU are talking about since there was no real links to them, nor do we see even names of people behind it, I'd very much doubt their modeling WAY WAY more than the models that you conveniently want to dismiss.

Models in US talking about 1.5 million deaths were NOT talking about current strategy, so you are clearly misleading or you don't have enough background to understand what those models had said.
 
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What is clear as day is that if we had implemented the same policies as other nations we would have had 10% of the deaths we now have.
How many more dead from all the factors listed in the OP if the lockdown had been more strict? How many will die as a consequence of the havoc wrought on businesses, national finances, and the social security net by the lockdown?

That's what we're attempting to quantify.

The analyses in the OP are for Europe and Africa, not the US, but certain governments and epidemiologists are concluding that the lockdowns have stripped significantly more years from people's lives than they've saved. We cannot take for granted that the lockdowns have killed and continue to kill people. We have to consider both sides of the equation.

Go ahead - follow the links from your original OP and show us WHICH study you are referring to specifically. When I follow the links I don't find them leading to the studies, but I do find them leading to a wonderful website called "lockdownsceptics.org", which I would not trust to interpret ANY kind of study.
Here is the summary of the report on LS.org.

Here is the English translation, along with the name and credentials of the translator.

Here is the link to the original report if you don't trust the transcription.
 
The OP references some papers (without links to them apparently) that it ALSO reference effectively some kind modeling, except it used its modelining twice - one time for how many deaths (years of life) covid preventative measures saved and another time for how many months were lost due to extra poverty. I.e. twice the opportunity to make large mistakes in their modeling.

Considering we don't really know what research papers YOU are talking about since there was no real links to them, nor do we see even names of people behind it, I'd very much doubt their modeling WAY WAY more than the models that you conveniently want to dismiss.
Links to the cited studies/reports in the excerpt (along with the names of the authors) are here, here, here, and here. This the last work I'm going to do on your behalf.

Although some of these are indeed based on medical and actuarial models, these models are long-established, founded in stable data and relatively few unknowns. Conversely, the "models that (I) conveniently want to dismiss" are highly speculative, heavily reliant on factors we simply don't yet understand or can't measure, and have demonstrably failed (and I contend will continue to fail) by considerable margins.

All I'm asking here is that you keep your mind open to the possibility that these lockdowns will wind up killing as many or more people than they save. Because while I agree with you that it will take more time to prove the thesis in the OP--and that it might ultimately fail to hold--I also know that at this point we certainly can't discount it either.

Models in US talking about 1.5 million deaths were NOT talking about current strategy, so you are clearly misleading or you don't have enough background to understand what those models had said.
Back in April, it was 2.2 million (absent radical intervention). Hence if we accept their modeling, we have to credit US government policy for saving roughly 2 million American lives.

The IHME is currently predicting: "If mask usage stays the same and states continue to relax social distancing requirements, the IHME model predicts over 620,000 Americans could die from the virus by the new year."
 
For the digestion of those who believe the only costs to COVID lockdowns are economic in nature, I've excerpted some of the more unsettling statistics.

Via Summit News (bold by me):

In an interview with German newspaper Handelsblatt, [Germany’s Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development, Gerd] Muller warned that the response to the global pandemic has resulted in “one of the biggest” hunger and poverty crises in history.​
Muller warned that further damage will be done if draconian measures continue to be enacted by governments.​
“We expect an additional 400,000 deaths from malaria and HIV this year on the African continent alone,” Muller emphasised, adding that “half a million more will die from tuberculosis.”​
...​
Muller’s comments come five months after a leaked study from inside the German Ministry of the Interior revealed that the impact of the country’s lockdown could end up killing more people than the coronavirus due to victims of other serious illnesses not receiving treatment. The findings dovetail with other research that has concluded lockdowns will conservatively “destroy at least seven times more years of human life” than they save.​
As we have previously highlighted, in the UK there have already been up to 10,000 excess deaths as a result of seriously ill people avoiding hospitals due to COVID-19 or not having their hospital treatments cancelled.​
Professor Richard Sullivan also warned that there will be more excess cancer deaths in the UK than total coronavirus deaths due to people’s access to screenings and treatment being restricted as a result of the lockdown.​
His comments were echoed by Peter Nilsson, a Swedish professor of internal medicine and epidemiology at Lund University, who said, “It’s so important to understand that the deaths of COVID-19 will be far less than the deaths caused by societal lockdown when the economy is ruined.”​
According to Professor Karol Sikora, an NHS consultant oncologist, there could be 50,000 excess deaths from cancer as a result of routine screenings being suspended during the lockdown in the UK.​
...​
As we further previously highlighted, a data analyst consortium in South Africa found that the economic consequences of the country’s lockdown will lead to 29 times more people dying than the coronavirus itself.​

The article goes on to discuss the impacts of food/supply shortages, malnutrition, etc. Even worse, the impacts of the lockdowns are just getting started. The bottom line is that the decision to lock down the world in response to COVID may prove to be not only one of the costliest but also one of the deadliest mistakes of the 21st Century.

Food for thought. 🤒


extremeright031.png

MBFCLow.png

Food for thought? More like "crap for thought." 😂
 
I’m sure the Covid related unemployed appreciate your economics. After the election they are going to be left to die on the vine.

It's not an all-or-nothing scenario. There is a balance to be struck. What we must never do, however, is fall into the thinking that human lives are less important than business interests.
 
If you follow the links back to the originating data, comments, interviews, reports, etc., none of them originate at Summit News. Summit News is just an aggregator. They're not a think-tank.

As for your summary refusal to consider any fact or figure not published by "a more credible publication" (which I presume means a major newspaper), I consider this extremely unwise given today's media environment. But... filter how you will.


This is precisely what the OP is contending, though. These are not spectacular deaths. They're deaths due to malnutrition, postponement of medical procedures, postponement of cancer screenings, lack of medicine, supply shortages, etc., but they're deaths nonetheless and they are occurring in "droves".


As I say in the OP, I think the ex post facto numbers are going to shock the world as to just how many lives hinge on what you trivialize as "economic inconvenience".

I highly doubt this. Those numbers are fuzzy anyway. Anti-lockdown extremists have a tendency argue that doctor identified deaths due to COVID-19 are inflated in spite of the fact that medical professionals are the ones pronouncing the deaths. So then with this in mind, how are lockdown-related deaths measured? How do we know when a death is caused by an economic lockdown? Who makes this pronouncement?
 
How many more dead from all the factors listed in the OP if the lockdown had been more strict? How many will die as a consequence of the havoc wrought on businesses, national finances, and the social security net by the lockdown?

That's what we're attempting to quantify.

The analyses in the OP are for Europe and Africa, not the US, but certain governments and epidemiologists are concluding that the lockdowns have stripped significantly more years from people's lives than they've saved. We cannot take for granted that the lockdowns have killed and continue to kill people. We have to consider both sides of the equation.


Here is the summary of the report on LS.org.

Here is the English translation, along with the name and credentials of the translator.

Here is the link to the original report if you don't trust the transcription.

Stop with the rationalizing. There is not doubt that the lockdowns saved lives and that earlier and more stringent measures saved even more lives. The abject failure here in the U.S. is case in point. We have 20% of the deaths and 4% of the population. That says it all. We here slow and lax with our shutdown and paid the price with 10's of 1000's of lives and untold economic damage that could have been avoided if we just imposed the measures that other countries did in a timely manner. The measures devised by the CDC and other agencies have been vetted with many years of experience and expertise. Denying science is not an option unless you don't care about human lives.

That isn’t a hypothetical question. And the answer that emerges from a direct comparison of the fatalities in and policies of the U.S. and other countries — South Korea, Australia, Germany, and Singapore — indicates that between 70% and 99% of the Americans who died from this pandemic might have been saved by measures demonstrated by others to have been feasible.

At least three factors enable meaningful comparisons of these nations with the United States. First, we scaled up their population sizes and Covid-19 deaths to match those of the U.S. Second, in each of these countries, roughly 80% or more of the population lives in urbanized, transmission-prone areas, similar to the U.S. Third, the pandemic took root earlier in these other countries than here, as measured by the date of the 15th confirmed case in each, meaning that foreign leaders had to act with less information to guide their decisions than did U.S. leaders.

To compare each country’s responses to the pandemic on a consistent basis, we turned to the work of an Oxford University team that has constructed a stringency index based on 13 policy responses (lockdowns, border closings, tests, etc.) to measure how strongly each country responded over time. The Oxford index shows that 14 days from the date of the 15th confirmed case in each country — a vital early window for action — the U.S. response to the outbreak lagged behind the others by miles. The U.S. stringency score of 5.7 at that point was 25% of Australia’s (23), 23% of Germany’s (25), 18% of Singapore’s (32), and only 15% of South Korea’s (38).

https://www.statnews.com/2020/06/19/faster-response-prevented-most-us-covid-19-deaths/
https://www.npr.org/sections/corona...f-social-distancing-started-1-week-earlier-st
 
Links to the cited studies/reports in the excerpt (along with the names of the authors) are here, here, here, and here. This the last work I'm going to do on your behalf.

None of these 4 links are the leaked study referred to by your OP, so I don't know what "work" you think you did here but your links are NOT it. Even your last link which comes closest to it is still NOT the original study but instead an intermediate link that your OP references but it ITSELF does not provide the link to the leaked study.

Although some of these are indeed based on medical and actuarial models, these models are long-established, founded in stable data and relatively few unknowns. Conversely, the "models that (I) conveniently want to dismiss" are highly speculative, heavily reliant on factors we simply don't yet understand or can't measure, and have demonstrably failed (and I contend will continue to fail) by considerable margins.

The "leaked" study you did not link to does not have any "good" models since we don't know what they are talking about, whereas the ones you dismiss are in fact coming from scientific community with long-established models.

Back in April, it was 2.2 million (absent radical intervention). Hence if we accept their modeling, we have to credit US government policy for saving roughly 2 million American lives.

That's as ridiculous as saying Trump saved 330 million Americans because he decided to NOT wipe out USA from the map by dropping nukes all over it. Just because US as a whole did something does not mean that "saved" lives when the response was so inadequate that our 4% of world population has 20%+ of world deaths. Moreover, much of credit goes to governors who shutdown the states IN DIRECT OPPOSITION to what Trump wanted. Trump mishandling on tests, ppe, and most importantly his fake news cost 10,000s of lives.

The IHME is currently predicting: "If mask usage stays the same and states continue to relax social distancing requirements, the IHME model predicts over 620,000 Americans could die from the virus by the new year."

Actually, they are currently predicting 275k-425k deaths by year end. The older article you linked had them at 410k as most likely scenario but projections change as more data comes in.

Here is the summary of the report on LS.org.

Here is the English translation, along with the name and credentials of the translator.

Here is the link to the original report if you don't trust the transcription.

I don't read German and "summary" from "lockdownsceptics.org" is not very interesting. So, let's look at your "English translation" link.

It does not help that it starts with " The main report has some 30,000 words in sophisticated German (with many typos, some confusing). " In any case, the translation is poor but I don't see where it discussed the models used or any kinds of numbers that would compare the two scenarios. There is mostly handwaving there. If you have some proof in that paper that they ran some models and computed number of people killed in scenario 1 vs scenario 2, please go ahead and quote it.
 
Yes, and much of it is due to the insane idea of prematurely reopening schools and colleges, and expecting young people to behave as responsible adults; the majority of new cases are among 17-24 year-olds. Several Universities have imposed mandatory lockdowns and quarantines because kids prefer to party. These spikes were entirely predictable, and we now also have the prospect of hospitals having to deal with seasonal illnesses on top of the expected increase in Covid hospitalisations. Back to square one we go.
it doesn't matter if you open the schools today or 6 years from now there's going to be a spike. So you hit the spike over with and get on about your daily lives. The spike comes from people being around each other that weren't previously around each other so unless they're going to be sequestered in their homes till the end of time it's going to happen
 
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