What if the government shouldn’t have this power?

What I find interesting about Sweden is that Tegnell (correctly imo) thought lockdown would make things worse, but that wasn’t how he justified not locking down. He said that Sweden, being a free society, did not have the authority to perform a China-style lockdown.

The rest of the “free” world ignored that point. They gave NO thought to whether they had the power to impose these measures. They just succumbed to their fear.

I don't think this is particularly likely to hold up (except by court cases becoming moot before the judicial process concludes); I think it's unlikely to have enough of an effect to make a meaningful measure; I think there should have been another relief bill quite a while ago.

> The rest of the “free” world ignored that point. They gave NO thought to whether they had the power to impose these measures. They just succumbed to their fear.

There was a lot of adjusting the strictness over time in a lot of places. Including repealing measures that were though to have gone to far outside of a very short time period.

The places that haven't locked down aren't looking good.

Really? Sweden looks great. South Dakota looks great. Not sure what data you're looking at.

> Yes, I am desperate trying to prove Trump wrong by not putting a temporary ~3 month Trump administration regulation on the same level as all the post 9/11 measures. Absolutely.

We've been locked down for half a year. Maybe you don't live in California but it's still full draconian lockdown here, and our state guidelines are crafted such that it is literally impossible for us to re-open.

My point about the Trump thing, not to de-rail, is that the Democrats want to "prove him wrong" for "minimizing" the virus, and they seem to think that locking down indefinitely and torching the economy / public health will make it look like Trump's fault and help them win. That's just my theory. But note that the problem here psychologically is far worse than just partisan politics, it's a defect in the way humans evaluate risk and particularly it's a problem with a globally connected world. Social media allows mind viruses to spread like crazy, and COVID-19 is the deadliest mind virus we've ever encountered. As far as the physical SARS-2 virus, it's pretty wimpy for people under the age of 70.

They have higher death rates than their neighboring countries. While the economic outcome doesn't appear to be better than the surrounding countries.

> South Dakota looks great.

https://covidtracking.com/data/state/south-dakota

Look at the hospitalizations. No, they're not doing good. They actually have one of the highest infection rates. And as you can see the deaths are increasing too.

> We've been locked down for half a year. Maybe you don't live in California but it's still full draconian lockdown here, and our state guidelines are crafted such that it is literally impossible for us to re-open.

I do live in CA. The last time the state started to reopen, with looser guidelines, the infection rates grew substantially. Deaths/day stayed pretty high for a long time, and is only slowly shrinking.

Also, how does that apply to my comment upthread?

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/

There are only 12 states doing better on a death rate perspective than South Dakota. And they've been 5 times more effective at preventing deaths than New York.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covi...

I would say if they get a spike almost 6 months after literally never shutting down anything, they've done extremely well either way.

No state should care about infection rates among healthy populations. That's normal and expected and necessary to reach herd immunity. Hospitalizations would be alarming but hospitalizations have plummeted nationwide even as case counts have risen.

We are already well within range of an ordinary flu season as far as excess deaths goes: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm

Also, draconian? What? In SF restaurants with outside seating are open and populated. State and national parks are largely open (unless closed due to fire / smoke hazard). A lot of stores are open for indoor shopping.

> Why doesn't the government have more power to shut things down so we can save my 99 year old grandma on life support from being taken from us in her prime?

Seriously. I know too many people that simultaneously denounce any sign of dictatorial government, but then can't praise loud enough any governor that shuts down their entire state.