Australia currently has a wildly exponential growth of cases and twice the number of daily cases/capita compared to Sweden, to take two countries at each end of the "containment" spectrum. And that's despite Australia being in the middle of summer, despite Australia being isolated in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and despite Australia having more restrictions than Sweden right now.
It's all hubris. We have way less control over the spread than we like to think.
I think NZ and especially China are the only ones left. I think NZ has relaxed its restrictions about 2-3 months ago and to be honest I'm a little surprised they haven't yet followed Australia's path with the exponential number of Omicron cases, but imo the very big question remains China, I have no idea how they plan to handle this going forward.
Dictatorships usually make examples of individuals/groups/regions to make everyone else fall in line. The virus however doesn't give a shit about the wishes of authoritarian regimes, which is why making an example of a region or a city and forcing millions of people to stay indoors, doesn't stop the spread elsewhere. It's a virus, not a rebellion.
I'm assuming China has always had a low level spread that could be hidden, because their demographics make it a non-issue. However, I'm guessing Omicron is creating such massive spread that regional officials can't deny reality any longer, and the lockdowns are some kind of desperate last-ditch attempt to save face.
As I've said in other threads on this issue, it is very difficult to hide deaths on even a small scale. Bodies do not simply disappear, and even small numbers of deaths are easily discoverable by measuring economic output (and even air quality!) of the region.
China is being at least reletively honest in their reporting, and I think thats difficult for us westerners to believe because their numbers are so shockingly low. An effective containment strategy _is_ possible, and the west has utterly failed in that respect.
> An effective containment strategy _is_ possible
Not at any cost I'm comfortable with.
According to National Health Commission report, more than 50% of adults are classified as overweight, and 16.4% are obese. [1]
Prevalence of diabetes is also over 10 %. [2]
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-55428530
[2] https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m997#:~:text=The%20preva....
Suicides among kids and teenagers are up 20%, I'm sure those kids would disagree with you.
Deaths of despair, i.e. alcohol and drug-related deaths are up considerably. Do their deaths count?
Deaths among dementia patients and similar are up, because of the isolation. It's very important grandma doesn't die of covid, but apparently no-one cares if grandma dies of loneliness.
Cancer screenings, heart screenings, stroke care, all of that is on the backburner, which will cost hundreds of thousands of lives in the future.
School disruptions affect all kids, but lower-income kids are overwhelmingly affected by it, and them lagging behind translates directly into shorter lifespans for that group.
We understand that every policy needs a cost-benefit analysis, but somehow, for corona, we completely abandoned that line of thought and went on some hysterical bandwagon where absolutely no strategy is deemed to costly.
Every single comprehensive QALY analysis of lockdown policies show that their cost is horrendous compared to the benefits. We're happily, gleefully, sacrificing our young for the benefit of our elders, and yet if you point this out, you're somehow the callous, unfeeling, murderer. It's insane.
China has obviously succeeded in defeating COVID, and done so with none of these secondary deaths you're describing (look at excess mortality). All of these "secondary" deaths did not occur in countries that implemented effective containment strategies, why do you think that is?
The western strategy has resulted in these "secondary" deaths you're describing, as a result of people like yourself being unwilling to accept the effective containment is possible and worth the cost.
No.
This entire thing is a huge inditement of police nanny states.
Do you have a source for that? Most Australian states have little to no restrictions at the moment bar mask mandates indoors. If I googled correctly, Sweden only allows seated customers in bars, restaurants and events as well as limits to events?
https://www.covid-19.sa.gov.au/restrictions-and-responsibili...
The other restrictions are of course coming back, despite promises to the contrary:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2022/jan/07/...
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-06/covid-restrictions-ti...
We're never getting a T-cell escape mutant that dramatically increases the risk of hospitalization/death in the vaccinated/recovered.
There's really very little to worry about variants if your vaxxed and boosted.
Experts still don't have any idea how intrinsically virulent Omicron is, and it may be every bit as intrinsically virulent as Delta was (there's lots of issues with the TMPRSS2 studies in mice, while the dominant effect is that Omicron is an escape mutant and is reinfecting and infecting the vaccinated).
The lower hospitalization rate of the Omicron wave can be explained entirely by human immunity. The properties of the virus are likely much less important than the headlines indicate, which suggests the the slow process of the human race building up immunity is going to grind on and future waves will be less and less effectively virulent (although it seems like human emotions are really attracted to the idea that the virus is changing to become less virulent and that seems to be driving emotional acceptance that the pandemic is winding down).
It's also the fact that, to put it bluntly, many of the people who were the most susceptible to be sent into ICU or to die because of Covid have already had that happen to them. Not sure if that scenario is included in the definition of "herd immunity", to be honest, just wanted to point that (cynical) truth out.
My heart goes out to those impacted by containment strategies. I was talking with someone from NZ or AU (I forget), who hasn't been able to go home an see his wife in two Christmases.
I expect that for the next year or two, boosters will be recommended as a yearly "flu shot" to give you a decent chance of being minimally affected if exposed. Omicron will continue to be the dominate strain, finding hosts in both the vaccinated and unvaccinated. The difference will be that we will have a myriad tools at our disposal to prevent serious illness and treat it when it does happen.
The only comparable virus is the flu, and the vaccine is equally shitty [0] as the covid vaccines are.
Death rates for young and (currently healthy) people are very very low (lower than traffic deaths in my country, much lower than suicides), and they are the most affected by the lockdowns. By reopening and focusing on risk groups we could finally start living normally again.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_vaccine#Effectivenes...
If a minor cold is enough to cripple our healthcare system, you have to wonder if maybe there is some other reason our hospitals aren't able(or willing) to go back to normal.
I spend thousands of dollars on health INSURANCE every year. If I go to the ER it still costs me over $2k. The last time I went to the ER, I didn't even see a doctor ONCE.
This is why anti-vaxxers and covid-deniers are such a big problem. They think that even if they are wrong, it only affects them, but it doesn't. If I get in a car accident tomorrow, there is a very real possibility that my own treatment will be delayed because the nearest hospital is overwhelmed with dying COVID patients.
The last time I went to the ER was prior to the pandemic… and it still cost over two thousand dollars after insurance. Insurance that I spent probably over 10k a year for.
Maybe Covid isn’t the issue. Maybe our infrastructure is.
If you think they aren’t laughing their arses to the bank over this then I dunno bud.
You really think that we can’t afford the equipment and staff to handle this? How much do you spend on health insurance every year? Your brother? Sister? Literally everyone around you? Why aren’t we pointing fingers at the hundreds of wasteful medical contractors hemorrhaging taxpayer dollars in this time of crisis? How much money do you think director level types and administrator level types deserve in times of catastrophe such as these, especially if my daughter can’t even see a doctor when she is sick?
Omicron is not the problem. We should be able to handle this.
Yes, welcome to the endemic. Covid is here to stay, it doesn't matter if 100% of the world were vaccinated tommrow, covid would not go away. It doesn't matter if you get the vaccination or not, in your life time you WILL get covid (just like the flu, no one escapes it, you typically get the flu about every decade or so regardless of shots).
We need to just accept this and move back to "old normal".