2. Flattening the curve is a strategy to lessen stress on healthcare by lengthening the time that the system can cope with stuff. A steeper curve leads to more deaths but ends quicker.

Thus. Lockdowns and people abiding with the rules does not make it end earlier, we want it to go on as that means a flatter curve.

To say the equivalent of "if you only wore masks this would have ended sooner and we wouldn't need lockdowns" is false but it makes sense at an emotional and behavioural level as most medicines, interventions, treatment promise quick results from compliance. It also more natural to blame people instead of an invisible virus for the crisis.

We want compliance so that it goes on for longer as that means less deaths.

How do you know that?

Will people still get infected? Yes, I'm sure they will since typical face masks are not P100. But when you're preventing ~80% transfer on an exhale and ~60% on inhale, if both participants had masks on then that filters a lot.

Granted this assumes other precautions would be followed as well since obviously places like bars and restaurants where you have no mask on will continue to be an issue.

For all intents and purposes, they don't have COVID.

Japan is seeing all-time record case counts:

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/tags/82/

South Korea is seeing infections growing "at their fastest pace since the early days of the pandemic":

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-southk...

Taiwan is actually seeing case growth, as well (albeit from a small base):

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

And not that you brought it up, but Hong Kong just saw an infection spike that has them instituting a bunch of new restrictions:

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/artic...

Public health coupled with the communication of it is a damnadly hard subject.

On top of science, the mask guidance in the US has switched multiple times [2]. We had a chance get this messaging right but we (the Trump administration) completely fucked that up. A lot of US institutions have lost their credibility, and it is not going to be easy for them to get it back.

[1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339321846_Impact_of...

[2] https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/19/health/face-masks-us-guidance...

"many of the people that are against shutdowns (that don't have an ulterior motive) are against them because people are out of work and creates issues with poverty. They are not against it because it doesn't help. So rather than saying no shutdowns, how about we take the proper steps and have a moratorium on rent and mortgages so solve the root of the issue."

inspires me to believe that the brutal and short shutdown, with the planned measures to prevent ordinary people getting penalized during it would in fact be the best treatment imaginable, with the least long term consequences.

But I also imagine enough those who would never be ready to accept such an approach for having huge ideological objections.

Thinking even more about it, some kind of such a response indeed happened in the world and gave the results. Knowing that result and proper planing can surely allow for even less negative effects than those observed.

Though given how hush hush China is about everything, it's also possible they've had a vaccine they've been using on their population for a while and just deigned not to tell or share.

In the US, New York had also to respond hard to the first wave.

Italy and US compared in deaths per million due to Covid-19:

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToS...

China, having the hardest and the most restrictive lockdowns, managed something even better than both: binging the numbers to effectively zero, very early. They also managed to maintain the minimum of new cases by mass testing actions when there was a suspicion of the outbreak:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-54504785

"Covid-19: China's Qingdao to test nine million in five days"

And they have still kept wearing the masks this year, whenever they aren't alone, if I understand it correctly.

We also know that such kind of mass testing can be done in Europe too, if mandated, as in Slovakia:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/slovakia-offers-proof-tha...

So, no, it wasn't about the vaccines up to now. The measures simply work, proved in Europe, and even in the US, when they are consistently introduced. As simple as that.

I was in favor of one hard lockdown and strict border controls, and that is mostly what happened. I was not in favor of shutting down butchers, bakers, and green grocers because that just crowded everybody into supermarkets making social distancing difficult and creating long lines at supermarkets. It also crushed several businesses into bankruptcy unnecessarily, caused lots of food to go to waste, and propped up the already-too-powerful supermarket conglomerates.

NZ had extreme advantages: an island nation with easy to control borders, a large lead time to prepare, a low population density, a unified jurisdiction, no constitutional restrictions on the government's power, first world medical infrastructure, a timid compliant population that overwhelmingly just does as they are told and doesn't makes a fuss, high social cohesion, double helpings of common sense. Cowardly risk-averse and boring people that will never amount to much more than a hill of beans by American standards, but happy nonetheless [this sentence was meant as tongue-in-cheek self-deprecating humor, sorry if anyone was offended or took it seriously].

The US does not have the options NZ had. The federal government does not have jurisdiction to enforce a national lockdown, and even local lockdowns are being ruled as unconstitutional. And if you can't do one coordinated severe lockdown to squash it completely and then strictly close your borders requiring two week quarantines for anyone coming in... then I say don't bother with lockdowns at all. Oh, and stop blaming everything on your president.

How do you figure this? Is the US approach courageous?

> NZ had extreme advantages: an island nation with easy to control borders, a large lead time to prepare, a low population density

NZ discovered cases just days after the US. The US is also not heavily populated. It depends on the source but NZ is about 15 people per km/2 and the US is about 36 per km/2.

A comparison could be made between Hawaii and NZ, and the contrast in how things have gone is quite something.

Cowardly is too strong for what I meant to say and I take it back. I meant it in an 'avoiding fighting' sort of way, choosing to not stand up and fight for one's rights, or choosing to give in so as to avoid confrontation, and in direct contrast to Americans seeming to fight over everything to the bitter end, with laywers, wars, refusals to comply, etc. Now that I read the definition, it was far too negatively connotated.

The pop. density of NZ is 15/km2. The pop. density of France is 119/km2. France also shares land borders with 7 other countries.

People saying "NZ's lockdowns worked" without actually having done the hard part is not helping.

How do you think we eradicated community covid several times?

I guess my point is that this is a multi-faceted thing, and focusing on one predictor is likely to be misleading.

If you have stats on density of occupied land, I'm happy to work with that.