The main topic of this thread is saving humanity from adverse man-made climate change. We are also talking about saving millions here.
We now have examples from all around the globe. China's super strict approach seems like it sort of worked for a while, but even they had cases.
The US is 91 million of the 584 million cases identified so far. It's ~5% of the global population with pretty low density outside of, what, 3 cities? Truly embarrassing that one of the wealthiest G8 countries can't handle outbreaks of any sort — to the point that NY has identified hundreds of polio cases for the first time in a decade.
It's not going to be pretty if the US faces another outbreak of something that kills and cripples the way that polio did just a few generations ago. I'm not convinced the answer then won't be the same, except now instead of sacrificing grandma we can place anyone on the altar of capital.
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality
Click on deaths per 100,000
Draw your own conclusions.
No, they didn't. This has been studied six ways from Sunday. They had no effect.
"Probably millions"
Lol. If you're an epidemiologist, sure, they love fantasy numbers like this.
Actual numbers of lives saved are probably negative, given the apparent absence of any impact on case numbers combined with the poverty and loss of access to healthcare they created.
I am not say "always lock down", but when it is appropriate it is a good tool. NSW, Australia was very locked down ... until vaccination rates were up high and then it suddenly wasn't. I feel like although NSW has it's fair share of blunders, it did pretty well overall. Some of that was good luck despite some bad decisions. But I am happy with the lockdowns even though they were disruptive. Some businesses suffered, and some did better. Suburban hospitality seemed to do well as people working from home are now getting their lunch local not in the city.
What natural immunity obtains against variants like Omicron?
And you talk about birth rates being down, what about COVID stillbirths in unvaccinated mothers?
https://www.propublica.org/article/covid-maternity-stillbirt...
Public health measures didn't put your family in poverty. The lack of any social safety net in the US did. Stimulus should have gone to people directly and not companies, but that's communism or something.
Maybe in hindsight the pandemic could get us thinking about why it’s a bad idea to tie health insurance to employment? Or the idea that shelter is contingent on laboring. It costs more to have people suffering and it makes everyone less safe needlessly.
Everything you said was absolutely true, but nothing was done about it, even with a 2+ year plague that killed over a million people in the US. The only person with a plan was not elected; he didn't even win the primary. I'm not overly optimistic about change.
No. If the government had not locked down, their family would not have slipped into extreme poverty. Simple as.
They very obviously did do that, and attempts to deny their impact is a form of "socialism washing".
"Stimulus should have gone to people directly and not companies, but that's communism or something."
Great plan. Give people printed money so prices all immediately rise, and then forcibly destroy all the organizations that produce things, ensuring prices immediately rise again. Yes, printing money and giving it directly to people whilst the economy gets shut down IS in fact communism, which is why we are now dealing with the consequent poverty. And it was all for nothing, because the public health measures didn't have any effect.
These problems are hard as hell, and yeah, being paid well insulates one from a lot of problems if that's what you set out to do. Not everyone sets out to do that though.