Johnson and Johnson single-shot vaccine appears 66% effective in global trial

Re:Johnson and Johnson single-shot vaccine appears 66% effec... by greesil on Friday January 29, 2021 @08:53PM (#25965230)

Yeah, this is a false dichotomy. There are other options other than lockdown vs no lockdown. You can have a social safety net and pay people to stay home. But if you're insistent that these are the only two options, look at Sweden. Their economy suffered despite not locking down last year because guess what, it turns out people don't want to go out and risk dying. So if your economy is doing to have mass unemployment, you may as well do that and avoid the death and injury. Or better yet, borrow at low interest rates and let people be unemployed but not destitute.

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Re:Johnson and Johnson single-shot vaccine appears 66% effec... by henrikschroder on Saturday January 30, 2021 @01:12AM (#25966696)

> Their economy suffered despite not locking down last year

A forecast, but with data up to November 2020, which means it's probably not gonna change substantially when we have the full year data:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1102546/coronavirus-euro...

So, Sweden is third least affected country in that list. It's missing Norway and Finland, though, but a quick google shows Norway at -3.5% and Finland at -4.0%, both worse than Sweden.

At the same time, the covid-19 deaths in Sweden is pretty close to the EU average, now, after the winter surge:

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

The obvious conclusion of that data is that lockdowns destroy your economy, but don't actually save lives.

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Re:Johnson and Johnson single-shot vaccine appears 66% effec... by henrikschroder on Saturday January 30, 2021 @12:25AM (#25966434)

> You can have a social safety net and pay people to stay home. But if you're insistent that these are the only two options, look at Sweden.

I think that first sentence sounds like a great strategy, and it's perfectly in line with what I suggested. Coincidentally, that's exactly what Sweden did as part of its strategy. So I'm not so sure how Sweden is an example of the opposite?

> guess what, it turns out people don't want to go out and risk dying.

If people are voluntarily doing that, what's the point of having the government enforce the lockdown?

> So if your economy is doing to have mass unemployment, you may as well do that and avoid the death and injury.

Again, lockdowns aren't 100% free. They also cause death, injury, and misery. Suicides are up, domestic violence is up, cancer screenings are down, drug overdoses are up, alcoholism is up, depression is way up. Poor kids in the US who relied on school lunches as their only decent meal of the day are suffering nutritionally, and will lose years of their life because of malnutrition now.

I have a friend who was sick with covid for months, and she's got a long way to recovery. I have a friend who just got out of the ICU after having been there a couple of weeks, he's in shit shape, but alive. That sucks. But I also have friends who were close to suicide because they were unemployed, isolated, and really depressed. That also sucks.

There are no easy choices in this mess, and yet lockdowns are sold as an easy choice by people for whom it is easy, and failure to lock down is portrayed as some sort of moral failing, which is horrifying to me.

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Re:Johnson and Johnson single-shot vaccine appears 66% effec... by lostlogin on Saturday January 30, 2021 @02:58AM (#25967209)

> Again, lockdowns aren't 100% free. They also cause death, injury, and misery. Suicides are up, domestic violence is up, cancer screenings are down, drug overdoses are up, alcoholism is up, depression is way up.

In NZ the suicide rate dropped, despite a lockdown that was considerably more severe than done in many places. Possibly making this misleading, NZs suicide rate is atrocious to begin with.

Yes, there was a hell of a lot of grim news and poor stats - but the below seems a little hard to to believe. They will lose years of life?

> Poor kids in the US who relied on school lunches as their only decent meal of the day are suffering nutritionally, and will lose years of their life because of malnutrition

https://www.mentalhealth.org.nz/assets/Suicide/Chief-Coroner...

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Re:Johnson and Johnson single-shot vaccine appears 66% effec... by greesil on Saturday January 30, 2021 @10:04AM (#25969611)

I'll take a look at the data. But I don't think that big problem is suicides, it's people getting evicted and starving.

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