Are lockdowns justified?

[FlatAssembler]

Detailed answer: You're an idiot.

And what have you accomplished in life so important that you have the right to call me an idiot? At least I have accomplished some things in life I am proud of, such as the papers I have published about linguistics (especially my latest paper about historical phonology I linked in the opening post, which is a product of years of research) and my programming language.

Nothing in our constitution prevents a lockdown

In just about every country today, the constitution guarantees the freedom of assembly.

Did you just say you believe Andrew Cuomo is the person leading the American government? Because he’s only the governor of New York.

As far as I understand it, the Cuomo's policy of putting COVID patients into nursing homes was widespread across the US.

It’s a fairly well-tested working hypothesis that one of the most effective ways to prevent communicable diseases is to keep the communicants away from one another.

Yes, but the question is whether the lockdowns actually achieve that. Like I said in the opening post, many people responded to lockdowns by rushing into grocery stores and buying unreasonable quantities of everyday products, arguably contributing to the spread of COVID.

In the history of natural disasters, there have been mandates that require mandatory evacuations.

As far as I understand it, the policy of locking down the entire population because of the pandemic is a very new one.

America has a 320 million population. 1% of that would still be almost 3 million deaths.

But not everybody would be infected by COVID. At some point, we would reach herd immunity. It is hard to tell how many people need to be infected to reach herd immunity, but it is presumably around 30%.

New Zealand has a pretty strict lockdown policy. Know how many people we’ve lost to COVID? 26.

Unfortunately, it does not seem to be a rule that countries with strict lockdown policies have lower deaths from COVID. What seems to be a far better predictor is life expectancy (more older people in a country, more deaths from COVID) and general health of the population (more people with type-2-diabetes, more deaths from COVID). The reason US had so many COVID deaths is probably the number of people with type-2-diabetes there. I don't know what is causing that massive rise of type-2-diabetes around the world, and especially in the US (where the saturated fat consumption probably reached its peak somewhere in the 1970s and sugar consumption probably reached its peak somewhere in the 1990s), but that is not relevant here.

Any idea how many people you’ve infected?

Do you know how many people with weak immune system you have infected in your lifetime with a disease you had no symptoms of, but which killed those people? See, there has never been time in human history when that danger did not exist. Sure, now that danger is bigger (I don't know exactly how much), but where does one draw the line?

Well, here's one attempt at figuring out how effective "lockdowns" are, judging US states against each other in terms of what limits they take early on and what restrictions they lift later on. It's pretty clear from the data that the states that took the swiftest action the earliest on ended up doing better.

And, as I am sure you know, there have been many similar studies reaching a different conclusion. And, like I have said, I think any such study is fundamentally flawed, if by nothing else, than by lumping good and bad policies together (like the Economic Freedom Index does).

at the moment, according to the latest figures, 2% of all people to develop COVID have died of it, and that's going to be lead to the deaths of a bit less than 6 million in the US alone

As far as I know, modern estimates for the mortality of COVID-19 vary between 0.4% and 0.6%. Also, not everybody is going to end up infected, because of the herd immunity. It is hard to tell how many people need to be infected to reach herd immunity, but it is presumably around 30%.

And as we all know, there's no way to take Vitamin D outside of sunlight. It's not like there's dozens of vitamin supplement makers who manufacture pills that can give people all the Vitamin D they need and then some.

But the problem is that the vast majority of people are not taking them. So, lockdowns may have killed more people than they saved because people did not know they needed to take Vitamin D.

As far as I can tell, the only nation that actually had laws against lockdowns prior to the pandemic is Sweden.

But just about every constitution guarantees the freedom of assembly.

We know that Texas is now restriction-free. Perhaps some others are too. From a scientific viewpoint, this is too early.

How do you know? Texas has been restriction-free for about two weeks now, and deaths from COVID have been decreasing. OK, maybe they will increase after a week, since it takes about three weeks to die from COVID, but I doubt it would increase by a lot.

just because the state advocates rules, does not mean all citizens follow them

Exactly!

And if you are older, that number goes up to 10% plus!

What do you mean? The death rate of coronavirus for those with age more than 70 is around 4.5%, right?

Well, to date 540 thousand Americans (and climbing) are dead because of it

It is actually very hard to estimate how many people died because of COVID-19, rather than with COVID-19.

Are you familiar with Karl Popper’s Paradox of Tolerance?

I don't think it would be a serious problem in an anarchy.

[Pat Mustard]

Detailed answer: You're an idiot.

And what have you accomplished in life so important that you have the right to call me an idiot?

I have read your idiotic nonsense. Oh, and publishing papers in journals is not a big deal these days, pretty much any masters candidate has to get at least one published.

[Rev. Rye]

I don't think it would be a serious problem in an anarchy.

And you don’t think some group with a lot of brute force behind it isn’t going to find some way to fill in the void where power used to be?

Also, you crow about how computer scientists can rig simulations to go their way due to left-wing bias, and yet you cite the AIER, a partisan think tank, to prop yours up. At least the think tank I cited (the Baker Institute) is actually nonpartisan.

[FlatAssembler]

I don't think it would be a serious problem in an anarchy.

And you don’t think some group with a lot of brute force behind it isn’t going to find some way to fill in the void where power used to be?

What makes you think a violent revolution establishing a repressive government would be more likely to happen in an anarchy than it is now? If anything, under anarchy, where there is no government preventing people from getting weapons, it is harder to establish a monopoly on violence.

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Also, you crow about how computer scientists can rig simulations to go their way due to left-wing bias, and yet you cite the AIER, a partisan think tank, to prop yours up. At least the think tank I cited (the Baker Institute) is actually nonpartisan.

Who cares if they are partisan or not? They are citing actual studies.

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And what have you accomplished in life so important that you have the right to call me an idiot?

I have read your idiotic nonsense.  Oh, and publishing papers in journals is not a big deal these days, pretty much any masters candidate has to get at least one published.

Do you have some research papers published? If not, do not claim it is easy.

[The Grand Nudger]

Nothing in our constitution prevents a lockdown

In just about every country today, the constitution guarantees the freedom of assembly.

I don't know about other countries..(and I'd be surprised)..but in the us, not a single one of our rights is a suicide pact.  They're all routinely limited in the public interest and there's no constitutional issue with doing so - as an endless mountain of declined and rejected appeals might demonstrate to you if you took the time to research the subject.

That handled....I've been reading this and I want to make absolutely sure that I've got your suggestion right. You think that vitamin d deficiency, and not covid.......killed half a million americans out of the blue? Did our massive processed fortification industry suddenly fail? Was there a milk crisis? Not a single bowl of cereal poured? Did we stop eating eggs? Have americans given up on beef?

Get the fuck outta here with this trash, lol. Half a million americans died because a fascist piece of shit turned public health into a culture war front during a pandemic his administration repeatedly and intentionally misled the public about - a pandemic which his administration was uniquely unqualified to address as a pirate crew of corporate raiders, racists, and crackhead pillow salesmen.

[FlatAssembler]

You think that vitamin d deficiency, and not covid.......killed half a million americans out of the blue?

No, I am saying that many studies show Vitamin D deficiency makes COVID worse. And lockdowns obviously contribute to Vitamin D deficiency.

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The only ways to get enough Vitamin D is by being on the sun or by supplements. You cannot get enough of it from food, except perhaps from some mushrooms (probably not even from them). Lockdowns make people spend less time on the sun. And the vast majority of people don't take Vitamin D supplements.

[Ranjr]

No, I am saying that many studies show Vitamin D deficiency makes COVID worse. And lockdowns obviously contribute to Vitamin D deficiency.

How is that obvious?  Show your math.  Take your vitamins.

Masks work:  https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2014564118

So do lockdowns:  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7268966/

The OP is all hand-waving that seeks to rationalize what you already believe.  You don't like the inconvenience of pandemic protocol.  That doesn't mean lockdowns and masks fail to reduce the spread.  Sorry your are inconvenienced by so many people becoming seriously ill and dying.

[The Grand Nudger]

-ands that's why the us engages in a massive effort to fortify our foods, unlike so many other third world shitholes. The vast majority of americans are eating and drinking supplemental vitamins. Have been for decades - a remnant of war footing. We've been shut-ins for decades too. Half a million americans did not suddenly die for lack of d. That's fucking insane.

On to the next bit on fantasy.

Americans don't need anarchy to get weapons. We already have them. Lots of them. Yes, anarchy would be the most friendly circumstance to a violent revolution. That's why our government will go to such ridiculous and abusive lengths to prevent even the tiniest whiff of it, and will reflexively cover for it and whitewash it when they fail to do so. In anarchy, the government has failed to establish a monopoly on violence, and so has lost it's practical and ideological authority.

Amusingly, if we insist that the reach of law is the range of a rifle, even in anarchy, the us will be one of the most lawful places on earth - a fact that the faction pushing this bullshit constantly dreams about, but never fully appreciates the ramifications of.

[arewethereyet]

It amazes me the lengths people will go to in order to back their personal take on a subject.

Of course, it shouldn't since that what the theists do.

This appears as thought Flat Assembler just plans to try to outtalk everyone with what is essentially the conspiracy theories he thinks are true.

[Silver]

Vitamin D deficiency? What a lame argument. Plenty of extremely pale people are perfectly healthy.