Re:'Long Covid': Why are some people not recovering?
by matwood on Tuesday October 06, 2020 @11:51AM
(#24699040)
Define restrictions. There is a large area between lockdown and doing nothing. Anytime I see people arguing about 'restrictions', it's usually a straw man of going back to a total lockdown. No one is talking about doing that nationally, and even locally it would only be in extreme cases of uncontrolled community spread.
If we hadn't politicized the virus every step of the way, we could have adopted some simple mitigation measures that would have already gotten us back to some level of normal. A national strategy of masks and distance could have kept things mostly open/got things re-opened. If people were generally trying to limit the spread, testing and contact tracing would work to control outbreaks.
Instead the US has a patchwork of rules with uncertain national leadership hoping the virus just disappears. All we have done is extend the time we have to deal with this mess, and possibly cause more deaths than necessary.
And, I just saw that the POTUS once again tweets it's just like the flu (which doesn't kill 100k Americans/year), further downplaying and extending how long any COVID recovery will take.
Ultimately, the 'economic devastation' you mention is not from the lockdowns, but our complete ineptitude around dealing with pandemic.
If we hadn't politicized the virus every step of the way, we could have adopted some simple mitigation measures that would have already gotten us back to some level of normal. A national strategy of masks and distance could have kept things mostly open/got things re-opened. If people were generally trying to limit the spread, testing and contact tracing would work to control outbreaks.
Instead the US has a patchwork of rules with uncertain national leadership hoping the virus just disappears. All we have done is extend the time we have to deal with this mess, and possibly cause more deaths than necessary.
And, I just saw that the POTUS once again tweets it's just like the flu (which doesn't kill 100k Americans/year), further downplaying and extending how long any COVID recovery will take.
Ultimately, the 'economic devastation' you mention is not from the lockdowns, but our complete ineptitude around dealing with pandemic.