Are lockdowns etc. any good?

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Tuesday, May 12. 2020

Are lockdowns etc. any good?

Likely not in the long run. "The lockdown has had enormous deleterious medical effects on people," and all it does is to delay the inevitable spread. Dr. B predicts 75,000 suicides due to despair for their futures due to business conditions. Many of our comfortable readers easily forget how many people get paid for work done, and get no routine paychecks in the mail. People with dreams crushed who do not want a government check.

My personal approach to virus phobia was doubles tennis last weekend in the sun and breezes, then cocktail hour on the porch. Call it defiance if you wish, but life is short and we have to live it while we can. My medical advice is to stay young, fit and trim, workout daily, and hope you get the mild or insignificant case as most people do, and get on with life as best you can.

There is no safe option because you cannot get rid of a virus. From Dr. Bhattacharya at Stanford Medical School:

Posted by Dr. Joy Bliss in Medical at 14:40 | Comments (20) | Trackbacks (0)

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That "stay young" trick is one I haven't quite mastered, although I do avoid watching Lawrence Welk re-runs on PBS.

What's your secret?

#1 Mike Anderson (Link) on 2020-05-12 15:49 (Reply)

But I like Lawrence Welk!

#2 John Foster on 2020-05-12 16:55 (Reply)

There have been a number of mathematical analyses which indicate the lockdowns have not worked (implementing the lockdowns did not significantly alter the slopes of infection or fatalities.

This is one of the more detailed ones.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.24.20078717v1.full.pdf

Can you imagine government officials admitting that these horrendous restrictions didn't change anything?

#3 jay on 2020-05-12 16:59 (Reply)

"Can you imagine government officials admitting that these horrendous restrictions didn't change anything?"

Totalitarians admitting they're wrong? Yeah. Right.

#3.1 jimg on 2020-05-12 18:33 (Reply)

Outside healthcare settings (hospitals, care homes, homes of the symptomatic), we need to deal with reality instead of what they've now come to call "common-sense precautions". That latter tells me that they are not based on anything but suppositions.

This is reality, and if you mitigate these conditions, you will go a long way:

Prolonged, close-range, interactions, indoors, involving "droplet", i.e., spittle, making activities such as talking, singing, yelling, coughing, sneezing, etc.

Social distancing becomes ineffective if you spend a long period of time in a poorly-ventilated space where virus is being shed by another occupant. Masks capture large droplets being emitted, but don't stop aerosol size virus fragments that can be inhaled repeatedly for cumulative viral load.

If they want to open schools, solve these vectors which are endemic in the classroom/school setting.

#4 JK Brown on 2020-05-12 17:01 (Reply)

"If they want to open schools, solve these vectors which are endemic in the classroom/school setting."

But we have to pack the young lemmings in like sardines so that we can more efficiently indoctrinate them

What you said makes lots of sense, but governments like a one size fits all solution for their jurisdictions. That's why any of these policies are best made at the local level. The further the government is from those they govern, the more their policies are about creating the illusion that the politicians are helping than actually helping.

#4.1 mike on 2020-05-13 10:21 (Reply)

which is lost first, brain or brawn?

QUOTE:

The literature in this area has been looking at the impact of physical activity on cognitive skills for a number of years. "Correlations have been established between these two factors, particularly in terms of memory, but also regarding the growth and survival of new neurons," begins Boris Cheval, a researcher at UNIGE's Swiss Centre for Affective Sciences (CISA). "But we have never yet formally tested which comes first: does physical activity prevent a decline in cognitive skills or vice versa? That's what we wanted to verify."

Earlier studies based on the correlation between physical activity and cognitive skills postulated that the former prevent the decline of the latter. "But what if this research only told half the story? That's what recent studies suggest, since they demonstrate that our brain is involved when it comes to engaging in physical activity," continues the Geneva-based researcher.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-03/udg-bom032420.php

#5 feeblemind on 2020-05-12 17:35 (Reply)

"There is no safe option because you cannot get rid of a virus."

Except you can.

The Spanish Flu vanished after Spring, 1920.

Smallpox was eradicated by 1977.

Poliovirus will be gone within the next decade.

#6 John deRobeck on 2020-05-12 17:42 (Reply)

Spanish flu disappeared on its own. 'Asian Flu' and 'Hong Kong' flu faded on their own but very much still exists.

Smallpox was a lucky accident. A competing genetic variant, cowpox, evolved which did not kill its host, so it became the basis for a vaccine. Variants of a disease that don't kill the host are ultimately more successful evolutionarily.

Polio and smallpox are the lucky exceptions as viral diseases go.

#6.1 jay on 2020-05-12 20:26 (Reply)

Nothing lucky about it, the eradication of smallpox and poliovirus was the result of decades of concerted work.

The point was, a false statement about viruses was made and counterexamples given.

The no-lockdown narrative needs false statements like viruses always incurable, but this belief is wrong.

You're not an anti-vaxxer are you?

#6.1.1 John deRobeck on 2020-05-12 22:05 (Reply)

"You're not an anti-vaxxer are you?"

Good grief. No, I'm a realist. If a vaccine can be created, that would be wonderful. But absolutely not a sure thing. My point was that tossing out a couple of successes (a very small number--and a vaccine did not stop the Spanish flu).

For each of the handful of virus infections that can be vaccinated against, there are so many more that cannot. Corona viruses especially are good at avoiding the body's defenses, and mutating regularly to maintain their evolutionary advantage. Swine flu was a complete failure. For the variety of these types of diseases the human immune system cannot be fully prepared.

By all means work on a vaccine. But our immediate need is better treatment of the infected/

#6.1.1.1 jay on 2020-05-13 11:29 (Reply)

The Spanish Flu disappeared on its own, and is a counter-example to the false statement in the original post. There are many, many examples of viral diseases controlled by vaccinations.

Coronavirus has been around a long time, and the diseases it causes have, to this point, been trivial (common cold) or minor and short-lived compared to this pandemic. Up to now there hasn't been a huge medical or more importantly, financial motivation to develop a vaccine. Now there is and the effort to do so is global.

The lockdown and all forms of social distancing are buying time for the development of treatment. This is a good thing.

#6.1.1.1.1 Hugh Evan-Thomas on 2020-05-13 23:46 (Reply)

And, sir, exactly how LONG does this lockdown have to last, you must know? Until pelosi cures us? She's all about science! I believe the cure will be worse than the disease. Ask the chiilililildreeeen. They'll be paying for this long after we are dead and gone from old age.

RANT on:

The virus? LOOK AT THE NUMBERS. If you are over 70, you may die of it (I am over 70, but a very healthy 70), if you are under 10 you won't. In between? It seems that, from what demographic numbers they let you see, your chances of death or serious complications are less than, far less than 1%. (But silly me, what would I know?, I'm just a lowly mathematician turned engineer, not a 'scientist'! They're just politicians in white lab coats. Look at fauci.)

I want to take care of the elderly and the infirm. They did take care of us for all those years (oh shutup, Karens, they DID take care of you**, you morons).

** side note: Why IS IT that millennials, et al, blame their parents for every one of their personal failings, but never give those same parents credit for anything good in their lives??

Sitting around getting more and more angry at politicians. There seems to be only one guy in. Washington who is NOT a politician nor a pervert.

RANT RANT RANT RANT off. Snort.

#6.1.1.2 TheCaptain on 2020-05-13 16:19 (Reply)

There is no safe option because you cannot get rid of a virus. From Dr. Bhattacharya at Stanford Medical School

If that becomes an active thought in policy makers, that is actually good news. If we KNOW that we can't end this disease with lockdowns, then we can stop this lunacy and get back to life. People will die. People were going to die anyway and the numbers of those because of the Wuhan virus, from what we know now, is not as bad as we once thought. Given how contagious it is, a large number of people will get it, the vast majority of those will have mild cases, and we will more quickly get to where there could be some "herd immunity." If the herd immunity works the way we think, the problem will be largely solved. There are treatments that are available now (some of which have a political correctness issue) and some percentage of those who get very ill can be treated with them. It's not that bad...

That may be a callous thing to say if you're not one of the ones to deal with a bad case of it but there are lots of ways to get really sick and the choice is not between having and not having to deal with the Wuhan virus.

#7 mudbug on 2020-05-12 20:29 (Reply)

"Many of our comfortable readers easily forget how many people get paid for work done..."

Y'know, I try not to be insulting with people who disagree with me by accusing them of bad motives. When I see that happening, I grow increasingly convinced that folks are making social and emotional rather than logical arguments. When I read this, I know you aren't listening anymore.

Only when disputants drop this crap can we begin to have a sensible argument. Pony up.

#8 Assistant Village Idiot on 2020-05-12 21:15 (Reply)

Sweden's chief scientist admits lessons have been learned over no-lockdown policy

QUOTE:

But now the country is past the peak of infections, its chief epidemiologist says, and there are few actions he would have done differently — apart from how elderly care homes were prepared for the outbreak.

“I don’t think anybody who is really thinking that much about this, is really sure about any strategy, because we’re all doing something that nobody did before,” Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s state epidemiologist who has led the country’s coronavirus response, told CNBC Thursday.

“On the other hand, it looks like it’s going to work out. We’re clearly past the peak in Stockholm and our health care (system) has been able to handle it, we have extra beds in the hospitals and everybody has been treated that needs to be treated, even non-Covid patients have been able to get treatment.”

He said Sweden’s experience had shown that “we can keep our schools open.” “That has not caused any major problems at all — it has not caused any problems that we can see. We can keep our society reasonably open, without huge effects.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/07/sweden-coronavirus-chief-scientist-admits-lessons-have-been-learned.html

#9 feeblemind on 2020-05-12 21:35 (Reply)

"any good" is relative. Prior to acquiring PPE's it did some good.
To prevent the overwhelming of hospitals it does some good. NY City did in fact overwhelm their hospitals but it was disguised by sending sick patients to nursing homes. That fatal mistake resulted in about 5000 people dying in those nursing homes who probably would not have died if they had had hospital care.

This lockdown will end and the numbers of covid-19 patients will increase along with the number of deaths. Hopefully no other hospitals will be overwhelmed and cause needless deaths.

#10 Anon on 2020-05-13 10:39 (Reply)

We planned a four-month RV trip across the western US months ago. When things started opening up (however slowly), we decided to go ahead with the trip, avoiding those ultra blue states that are determined to live with their head under the covers indefinitely. Strangely enough, we are far from the only RVers to get out on the road and enter the campgrounds (KOAs are our favored places). So far, there are plenty of restaurants with takeout or delivery service. Many landmarks are closed, but not all (we're planning to see the March of the Ducks at the Peabody Hotel in Memphis tomorrow, must wear masks).

#11 RebeccaH on 2020-05-13 17:44 (Reply)

We're all in this together comrade.
Keep your distance.

#12 Hee Haw vs. Lawrence Welk on 2020-05-15 23:14 (Reply)

"We're all in this together comrade."

I. I'm not in a Mao Concentration camp, yet! Don't call ME, comrade.... bub.

II. No, we are NOT 'all in this together.'
I'm not a Hasidic Jew in NYC, nor am I a low-IQ person of excess melanin.... both of which can't observe even Anglo Social Distance, let alone this KGB form....

https://stansberryresearch.com/articles/the-big-lie-behind-covid-20

I'd prefer my freedoms back, TYVM. You can keep your 'all together' with the other sheep....

#12.1 Fr. John+ on 2020-05-16 15:52 (Reply)

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Tuesday, May 12. 2020

Are lockdowns etc. any good?