>The grim reality is that there hasn't been a single policy that's been shown to have made any difference at all. NONE.

BULLSHIT.

How delusional can you be? There is plenty of evidence that masks and contact reduction in various forms have a massive effect on how quickly the virus spreads. Infection numbers and their development over time varied wildly between countries, clearly correlated with such measures, long before vaccines were available.

> BULLSHIT. How delusional can you be?

The comment you responded to asked for an honest, intellectual response but your response was reactionary, rude, and provided no insight.

The links you supplied in your other comment do not show a clear causal effect of mandates and restrictions on case rates. Outbreaks are known to follow a pretty clear 45 day cycle; the onset of restrictions usually occur as rates are exponentially increasing and theres no evidence that such restrictions taper infections to a degree discernible from the normal cycle.

Furthermore, observational evidence from states like Florida, a state that has zero restrictions or mandates and yet currently has the lowest case rate in the United States, make the idea that such measures have a “massive effect” on spread dubious at best.

> The links you supplied in your other comment do not show a clear causal effect of mandates and restrictions on case rates.

They do. It's not mathematically-clean, but that is just not what you get in a messy reality.

>Outbreaks are known to follow a pretty clear 45 day cycle; the onset of restrictions usually occur as rates are exponentially increasing and theres no evidence that such restrictions taper infections to a degree discernible from the normal cycle.

What is the mechanism behind this cycle that you claim? How do you conclude that it's not the typical beaurocratic reaction time to rising case numbers and implementation of restrictions that cause the cycle?

We know how the virus spreads. How contact reduction and masks prevent that is simple enough for a preschooler to understand. We have strong empirical evidence that it works at scale. Claiming anything else is simply reality denial.

>Furthermore, observational evidence from states like Florida, a state that has zero restrictions or mandates and yet currently has the lowest case rate in the United States, make the idea that such measures have a “massive effect” on spread dubious at best.

How so? How can development in a state that has no restrictions prove anything at all about how effective they are?

At most, the example can prove that there are other things that can reduce case numbers. I never said there weren't. Now go and tell me what they are, how they work, and how they can be transferred elsewhere. Because if the answer turns out to be "warm climate" that is not very useful.

It's totally worth looking at. But not as a diversion to avoid doing things we know to work at preventing hundreds of deaths every day.

> There is plenty of evidence that masks and contact reduction in various forms have a massive effect on how quickly the virus spreads.

If this is true, why is it when showing a chart of data it is almost impossible to pick when any of these measures went into effect? If these measures worked to any worthwhile degree their effect on any data should be absolutely profound. Thus far, you'd have a hard time picking florida out from oregon or california. If you need PhD level math to prove that all these NPI'S work... it means they weren't worth the extremely toxic and corrosive effectives they've had on our communities. Any fool off the street should be able to look at the raw data and see the impact, which currently you can't do.

>If this is true, why is it when showing a chart of data it is almost impossible to pick when any of these measures went into effect?

Quite exactly the opposite is actually true: it's always very clear from such charts that the measures are very effective.

Some examples:

https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/phac-aspc/images/corporate...

https://www.nejm.org/na101/home/literatum/publisher/mms/jour...

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/state-timeline

Doesn't take "PhD level math" either, just some basic understanding how the effects are delayed by incubation period, testing and reporting, and how an exponential function changes shape as the exponent changes

It's not nearly as straightforward as you're pointing out because people voluntarily change their behaviour in response to circumstances, like case numbers, deaths, etc. Your big assumption is that top-down policies/controls are the biggest factor causing delayed change in numbers, but that isn't at all clear from the data alone.

I was arguing against the ridiculous claim that measures don't work at all. Whether they are voluntary or top down policies does not really matter.

amazing how in many places the cases start dropping the instant the lockdown comes into place, or sometimes even slightly before, rather than ~10 days afterwards as would be expected from the incubation period. can the virus hear us?

Incubation period varies, and is probably best modelled as a Gaussian function.

Some cases will incubate nearly right away, and others will take more than the 2-3 weeks that are often used as quarantine periods. Getting to the 95th or 99th percentile is not the same thing as getting to the 100th percentile.

This is one of the reasons that a covid-zero strategy is effectively unimplementable.

Correlation does not equal causation. And of course studies done by people with a vested interest in proving all this worked will say this worked.

You’d be hard pressed to find studies that say none of this worked. Such researchers would destroy their careers and be labeled as kooks.

So basically, you just don't want to believe the evidence, don't have any substantial criticism either, just vague bullshitting.

I have done that in another reply before your comment, and the data is in fact very clear and obvious, your silly denial nonwithstanding.

Let's turn the tables: if you claim that contact reduction measures and mask mandates don't work, show me the evidence. Show me a place where they were implemented, and there was no effect on case numbers after 2 to 4 weeks. Go. I'm waiting.

> ANY efficacy in slowing covid? One??

Here, this was recorded on March of 2020

https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac/status/1238604080571772928

Simply because your country's leadership is incompetent and you are incompetent at finding opposing views and analysis doesn't mean that said tools don't exist

Apologies for writing such a scathing comment but, guys, we are 1 year plus into this, please just... I don't even know, I'd like to say "inform yourselves" but with the web and informational intakes being so fragmented who knows what you guys even consider "good information" anymore

In Hawaii, there was a direct correlation to covid cases and travel bans i.e. allowing only covid -ve tested travelers.

State has also seen no increase in covid cases once they allowed fully vaccinated travelers. So yeah lockdown works. And so would masks at some level.