Hopkins meta study show Covid lock downs nearly useless

[Bitek]

China's numbers are probably completely unreliable anyway. So who really knows if their draconian form of lockdown works?

I think you need to prove that if you wish to claim their entire pandemic response strategy results are fabricated.

And what, tens of millions secretly died?

Are they 100% accurate, doubtful, but they have had an atypical outcome.

 

[sportage]

HEY PEOPLE. Lets keep it simple.
Fact is, what the world did, and what we did over here in the US was well warranted.
Why?
Because we had no idea, NO IDEA what we were dealing with.
Remember the unknowns?
What we did know back then, we had a pandemic spreading world wide.
What we DID NOT know back then was how bad it could become.

Ever heard of the saying BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY?
Well, that especially applies for pandemics. Disease. Viruses that spread so rapidly with causing deaths, and back then we had nothing to fight the virus with. Not until much later when the vaccines came along.

And so, was what we did do back then worth it? YES! ABSOLUTELY!
Was it necessary? YES! ABSOLUTELY!
In the very beginning had we worn masks, had stayed home, had stopped gathering in groups, would we have been better off in controlling Covid? ABSOLUTELY!

It's a little late for regrets because back then we simply DID NOT KNOW.
However what we did do, at least some of us did do, was definitely worth doing. The true regret is we the people should have been 100% united as one. Once known as patriotism. That same patriotism that got us thru the great depression and WWII. But Donald Trump screwed that up for all of us. And, still is to this very day.

Consider THIS, should another deadly pandemic come along or a deadlier variant of this current virus emerge, we are all screwed. We will be dropping dead like flies. One would "think" we would have learn a most valuable lesson from all of this, and would be prepared for the next pandemic, but that is not going to be the case. Frankly, we as a people haven't learned anything from this experience. Too many Americans are still as pig headed as ever. The next time around, human life itself could become extinct. It only takes one little deadly microbe, mixed in with a lot of uncaring ass-holes, and another Donald Trump, and there you are. An extinct species.

 

[Commodus]

HEY PEOPLE. Lets keep it simple.
Fact is, what the world did, and what we did over here in the US was well warranted.
Why?
Because we had no idea, NO IDEA what we were dealing with.
Remember the unknowns?
What we did know back then, we had a pandemic spreading world wide.
What we DID NOT know back then was how bad it could become.

Ever heard of the saying BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY?
Well, that especially applies for pandemics. Disease. Viruses that spread so rapidly with causing deaths, and back then we had nothing to fight the virus with. Not until much later when the vaccines came along.

And so, was what we did do back then worth it? YES! ABSOLUTELY!
Was it necessary? YES! ABSOLUTELY!
In the very beginning had we worn masks, had stayed home, had stopped gathering in groups, would we have been better off in controlling Covid? ABSOLUTELY!

It's a little late for regrets because back then we simply DID NOT KNOW.
However what we did do, at least some of us did do, was definitely worth doing. The true regret is we the people should have been 100% united as one. Once known as patriotism. That same patriotism that got us thru the great depression and WWII. But Donald Trump screwed that up for all of us. And, still is to this very day.

Consider THIS, should another deadly pandemic come along or a deadlier variant of this current virus emerge, we are all screwed. We will be dropping dead like flies. One would "think" we would have learn a most valuable lesson from all of this, and would be prepared for the next pandemic, but that is not going to be the case. Frankly, we as a people haven't learned anything from this experience. Too many Americans are still as pig headed as ever. The next time around, human life itself could become extinct. It only takes one little deadly microbe, mixed in with a lot of uncaring ass-holes, and another Donald Trump, and there you are. An extinct species.

This is an important point. Even if we accepted the conclusion of this meta-study prima facie (most of us here don't)... you don't deal with a brand new, known-to-be-deadly virus by throwing caution to the wind and hoping some mild suggestions will be enough. Especially not if (at the time) you think there's a chance you might eradicate the virus. You consult whatever data and modelling you have and implement restrictions accordingly.

Some folks forget that science is an evolutionary process, especially in the medical realm. It takes time and data to reach conclusions, and even those conclusions can change — if a virus mutates, what you knew before isn't necessarily valid now. Lockdowns were implemented because scientists and politicians had to act on incomplete info, and it was far wiser to be overly cautious than not cautious enough.

 

[pete6032]

Aside from the things others have pointed out, it is worth reiterating that the authors here reviewed the impacts of stay at home orders on deaths. Their conclusion seems to be that because stay at home orders did not decrease deaths, the orders were useless.

What the authors fail to mention, however, is that stay at home orders had multiple purposes. 1) Decrease the spread of the disease overall, 2) Free up hospital beds, 3) prevent deaths from COVID-19.

Even if the author's (dubious) claims of no impact on item #3, we would still need to assess whether stay at home orders had an impact on 1 and 2. The orders almost assuredly did decrease the number of cases in the first wave of 2020, and thus also decreased hospital utilization, ultimately benefitting society.

 

[pmv]

I think you need to prove that if you wish to claim their entire pandemic response strategy results are fabricated.

And what, tens of millions secretly died?

Are they 100% accurate, doubtful, but they have had an atypical outcome.

Part 1: China Is Underreporting The Covid Death Rate

China understates the Chinese Covid death rate by 17,000% ... The true number of Covid deaths in China is not 4,636 – but something like 1.7 million. That is, China’s cumulative death toll is likely at least double that of the United States.

www.forbes.com

In fact, based on excess mortality calculations, The Economist estimates that the true number of Covid deaths in China is not 4,636 – but something like 1.7 million.

(Incidentally, I'm bemused how - and not just on here but in other contexts also - I seem to get alternately challenged, or sometimes outright attacked, by people who think I'm being too soft on China, or being too anti-Chinese)

 

[pmv]

1.7 million gives a per capita death rate of 1 in 847, as opposed to its reported rate of 1 in 310,467. Still better than the US rate (an astonishing 1 in 364), so I guess there are some upsides to being a police state (at least in comparison to being in a perpetual conditon of low-intensity civil-war, like the US), but nothing like as good as reported.

 

[cytg111]

Says the "citizen of Europe" (Germany) that wanted to tattoo numbers on the arms of people that refuse the vaccine.

You know, speaking of germany, when I think of you I actually have a literally Nazi in mind, I mean at least I am not on team treason where I am at, trying to overturn democracy, fuck everyone else up, I am not the one sucking Putin dick.. You are taj, a little sad Nazi wannabe.

I mean its a little exciting, in terms of killing Nazis, something I thought was my granddads distinct privilege, no longer has a zero chance output probability for those of us able bodied men today. Rise of the third Taj. Exciting times.

 

[manly]

It's a meta-study, which is an analysis of other studies. The meta-study does not discuss the methodology of the studies it's analyzing in any great detail. What I want to know is how they determine how effective a lockdown is. There is no way to know how many deaths you would have had in a scenario where there had been no lockdown. They can compare a place that had lockdowns to a place that didn't have lockdowns, but that is a problem because many local/regional variables can affect COVID transmission and outcomes.

I would reserve judgment on the matter until I understand the methodologies involved.

I know this isn't proof, but the world was largely able to avoid the catastrophes in Wuhan, Northern Italy and NYC metro from occurring in other population centers. If the end result is relatively benign and people wonder if a "lockdown" was an overreaction, that means the measures worked spectacularly well.

Again, that isn't proof but pretty strong evidence for me.

I don't have a problem with John Hopkins but I have a few points.

Like others have pointed out we never really went into lockdown because too many people refused to cooperate. All the pro-lifers want their freedumbs to sacrifice their lives to covid.

This study doesn't mean we did the wrong thing. We acted and continue to act on the best information we had at the time.

If given the choice to trust Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis or Dr Fauci, I'm still choosing Fauci. The first 2 are the only ones who have outright lied.

I want to see this study flushed out more.

I don't really agree with your narrative. The U.S. didn't have a "lockdown" per se because our system doesn't give that power to POTUS. A few governors issued "stay at home" orders even before the federal government issued its guidance. Some states never bothered to restrict people at all; and by and large, nobody anywhere was getting harassed by law enforcement to shelter in place. So yes, it was a fairly soft lockdown compared to other countries.

Having said that, for several weeks, we as a country did stay at home and bend the curve. As I said above, the nightmare scenario of hospitals outside of NY crashing was avoided (at least until the winter surge). I can't speak for what people were doing in the Dakotas (i.e. the infamous Sturgis superspreader event) or other rural areas. But at least in March 2020, Americans largely complied with reasonable public health orders for a few weeks. What happened after that is DJT got scared about reelection, and actively sabotaged his own federal response for purely political reasons.

 

[outriding]

We can just look at a study of Norway and Sweden.

Both have the same climate, culture being the same (they use to be one country) and etc etc.

Sweden did zero lock down / no masks / etc.

While Norway did masks, closures and etc.

There were 10 times the deaths in Sweden than Norway per capita.

That article is complete BS flat and simple.

 

[woolfe9998]

I know this isn't proof, but the world was largely able to avoid the catastrophes in Wuhan, Northern Italy and NYC metro from occurring in other population centers. If the end result is relatively benign and people wonder if a "lockdown" was an overreaction, that means the measures worked spectacularly well.

Again, that isn't proof but pretty strong evidence for me.

I wouldn't compare NYC to those other two examples. In NYC itself they still had massive death rates early on in spite of lockdowns. But the issue is there is no way to know if the deaths rates would have been higher without lockdowns, and if so, by how much. We'd need a time machine and a policy redo in the new timeline in order to know that. That's why I have trouble with all these studies.

As for Italy and Wuhan, the lockdown measures were much more severe than anywhere in the US. It may be that lockdowns have to be like martial law levels of severity to really work and that half measures only barely reduce deaths while adding economic damage. But here again, we don't know for sure. It may be that higher germaphobia in Asian countries causing voluntary precautions was a greater factor for China than it's severe lockdowns.

 

[vi edit]

NYC is such a niche case. It was being community spread far longer than we thought and it hit before any lockdowns would have helped them. It was already out there. Nursing homes there just got decimated in that first wave before we had much data or info on helpful therapeutics. You also had super spreader events like churches and weddings that people sort of yolo'd through things even in the face of lockdowns because...muh freedoms.

 

[manly]

NYC is such a niche case. It was being community spread far longer than we thought and it hit before any lockdowns would have helped them. It was already out there. Nursing homes there just got decimated in that first wave before we had much data or info on helpful therapeutics. You also had super spreader events like churches and weddings that people sort of yolo'd through things even in the face of lockdowns because...muh freedoms.

I wouldn't even call it a niche case. In my previous post, I was a little off on timeline but NYC was already an epicenter prior to the weeks in April where U.S. cities turned into ghost towns. I distinctly remember Gov. Cuomo and Mayor De Blasio swinging their dicks at each other in a measuring contest while the catastrophe rapidly unfolded.

My general point still stands. Although there were different kinds of lockdowns around the world, there were 3 main COVID epicenters (perhaps Madrid was a 4th) until countries decided to act. Maybe this isn't proof that lives were saved, but it sure seems like it to me. The immediate hospital crashes that everybody feared didn't occur until winter when at least hospitals were better prepared overall.

It doesn't necessarily address the conservatives argument that the economy was sacrificed in the process. Or if lives saved in spring 2020 were just deaths deferred until later surges. Even if that was the case, it's the right public policy because the fatality rate at the beginning was highest when the world was least prepared for a novel disease.

Lockdowns don't have to be Wuhan-style to have a strong effect. IMHO, the limited form in the U.S. achieved the desired results, but then POTUS insisted on a reopening by Easter. That put the U.S. on a different pandemic path than many other wealthy countries.

 

[Bitek]

1.7 million gives a per capita death rate of 1 in 847, as opposed to its reported rate of 1 in 310,467. Still better than the US rate (an astonishing 1 in 364), so I guess there are some upsides to being a police state (at least in comparison to being in a perpetual conditon of low-intensity civil-war, like the US), but nothing like as good as reported.

Thanks for posting. I routinely look at the financial times excess deaths charts, but China is frustratingly missing.

 

[emperus]

First, the US never locked anything down.

Second, this is at odds with lots of other studies, which of course Taj ignored because he’s a dishonest person.

Third, the ‘lockdowns’ which did happen in the US were the closures of bars and restaurants, which the paper identifies as an effective measure.

Finally, the idea that these closures caused some sort of massive economic damage is at odds with what everyone here experienced with their own two eyes.

If the closures were what caused the economic damage and not fear of the virus, why was flight traffic down over 60% despite having literally no restrictions placed on it whatsoever?

edit: school closures were a bad idea though, yes!

Agreed with most of that except the school closure part. In hindsight it wasn't effective but, I think the decision was wise given how much was unknown when the pandemic began.

 

[manly]

Part 1: China Is Underreporting The Covid Death Rate

China understates the Chinese Covid death rate by 17,000% ... The true number of Covid deaths in China is not 4,636 – but something like 1.7 million. That is, China’s cumulative death toll is likely at least double that of the United States.

www.forbes.com

(Incidentally, I'm bemused how - and not just on here but in other contexts also - I seem to get alternately challenged, or sometimes outright attacked, by people who think I'm being too soft on China, or being too anti-Chinese)

I can't speak to Forbes magazine itself, but online they are a platform for "contributors" to post content. This particular piece reads like it's written by a guy with an axe to grind, although I could be wrong.

He claims the Economist model estimates China's excess deaths to be 1.7M, but the Economist itself does not appear to provide any such data. They can't because China has not released comprehensive data on deaths during the pandemic.

It's likely that China has significantly underreported COVID deaths, but it's a mystery where this 1.7M claim comes from. Based on how this article was written up, I'm not interested in continuing on to parts 2 and 3.

 

[Meghan54]

I can't speak to Forbes magazine itself, but online they are a platform for "contributors" to post content. This particular piece reads like it's written by a guy with an axe to grind, although I could be wrong.

He claims the Economist model estimates China's excess deaths to be 1.7M, but the Economist itself does not appear to provide any such data. They can't because China has not released comprehensive data on deaths during the pandemic.

It's likely that China has significantly underreported COVID deaths, but it's a mystery where this 1.7M claim comes from. Based on how this article was written up, I'm not interested in continuing on to parts 2 and 3.

Let me guess....you didn't read the article.....

This was linked in it.....

How we estimated the true death toll of the pandemic

Dealing with potential outcomes, known unknowns, and uncertainty

www.economist.com

GitHub - TheEconomist/covid-19-the-economist-global-excess-deaths-model: The Economist's model to estimate excess deaths to the covid-19 pandemic

The Economist's model to estimate excess deaths to the covid-19 pandemic - TheEconomist/covid-19-the-economist-global-excess-deaths-model

github.com

 

[manly]

Let me guess....you didn't read the article.....

This was linked in it.....

How we estimated the true death toll of the pandemic

Dealing with potential outcomes, known unknowns, and uncertainty

www.economist.com

It's challenging because The Economist is behind a paywall and I'm not a subscriber. But I understand how the analysis works because several major publications have done such reporting since 2020 (namely the NYT, WSJ, The Economist and FT). Since you linked to The Economist's methodology, I'll quote from that URL:

A large majority of the world’s population lives in regions, including India, China and most of Africa, where data on excess deaths are heavily delayed or entirely unavailable.

Basically what happened is that The Economist has a machine learning model that's applied to all the countries that have released data on deaths over the past couple years, in order to more accurately estimate COVID deaths. The writer of that Forbes piece, a finance professor, somehow applied that data model to China and came up with 1.7M COVID deaths. Not only did he come up with this estimate, but he then attributes it to The Economist! Which is quite an achievement considering how The Economist and FT come up with COVID mortality estimates is based on official data on deaths reported by countries. Again, that data set simply doesn't exist for China.

I stand by what I said previously, the Forbes write-up reads like a hit piece that isn't grounded in solid data science. The professor mixes in a lot of opinion to go along with various facts.

 

[pmv]

Let me guess....you didn't read the article.....

This was linked in it.....

How we estimated the true death toll of the pandemic

Dealing with potential outcomes, known unknowns, and uncertainty

www.economist.com

GitHub - TheEconomist/covid-19-the-economist-global-excess-deaths-model: The Economist's model to estimate excess deaths to the covid-19 pandemic

The Economist's model to estimate excess deaths to the covid-19 pandemic - TheEconomist/covid-19-the-economist-global-excess-deaths-model

github.com

To be fair, as far as I've seen, the Economist's published excess deaths stuff doens't really cover China. I'm not sure what they did to estimate those, and it's a fair point that the article doesn't seem to give a complete source. (The link you give requires an account to read, so I haven't seen that webpage.)

In general though, the official Chinese death figures just seem implausibly low, and it's not at all hard to imagine, given the nature of the Chinese system - with the constraints on information and the incentives at every level to put a posiitve spin on your performance, that there are incentives for not fully reporting the numbers, from the bottom (local party bosses) up to the national level, and little incentive for the CCP to push to strongly to get the true picture.

India is known to be under reporting deaths massively, and I don't see why China would be any different. In both cases it will be a mix of inability to fully count the numbers and a reluctance to look too closely, just probably those two factors in different proportions for each country.

 

[raildogg]

The lockdowns are not useless to the mega-corps such as Walmart, Amazon, Facebook, Netflix, Google and many, many others. The financial firms, the investment firms, etc. They were certainly helped during covid, especially when government policy was to pump out the easy money train.

The covid policy might be harmful to the small businesses, but certainly not harmful to the ruling class. We've seen more wealth transferred to the top .1% during covid than probably anytime before.

 

[Fenixgoon]

The lockdowns are not useless to the mega-corps such as Walmart, Amazon, Facebook, Netflix, Google and many, many others. The financial firms, the investment firms, etc. They were certainly helped during covid, especially when government policy was to pump out the easy money train.

The covid policy might be harmful to the small businesses, but certainly not harmful to the ruling class. We've seen more wealth transferred to the top .1% during covid than probably anytime before.

it almost sounds like you're advocating for taxing the wealthy

 

[raildogg]

it almost sounds like you're advocating for taxing the wealthy

When the government and the ruling class (top .001%) are on the same team and serve each other, taxes only go so far.

 

[imported_tajmahal]

The small benefit from lockdowns wasn't worth the cost.

Johns Hopkins Study: Lockdowns Only Reduce Mortality by 0.2 Percent | Mises Institute

That something "works" isn't a license for a regime to do whatever it wants. But given that lockdowns don't even work—and are morally repugnant—how can they be

mises.org

How Much Evidence Is Required to Abolish Your Rights?

"
The all also reflects a monomaniacal technocratic obsession with justifying anything and everything so long as it can be shown to "work." But, even if lockdowns worked, this wouldn't excuse the fact that lockdowns are premised on imposing widespread human rights violations on the population at large. Lockdowns deny the right to seek employment, the right to travel, and the basic right to contract for services. That something "works" isn't a license for a regime to do whatever it wants. After all, many Asian regimes no doubt believe that the widespread use of the death penalty for drug offenses "works." Similarly, it may be that torture "works" to extract information from suspected terrorists—although data shows it doesn't. The "success" of torture would not be sufficient to justify its use, and a healthy respect for human rights suggests such practices are unacceptable.

Advocates of lockdowns will argue that having one's livelihood confiscated by health officials is not on the same level as execution or torture. Even if that's true we must ask exactly how much evidence lockdown advocates require before they are willing to violate your rights in the name of "doing what works." The answer apparently is "not much." In a sane society, the burden of proof always falls on those who want to increase state power. Predictably, however, the lockdowners insisted there was no time to worry about evidence for their radical new scheme. And once they had the power, they refused to accept any expiration dates or other limits to their power. This is why they're constantly moving the goalposts, changing time horizons, and generally insisting that any opposition is tantamount to "killing grandma." But it is only becoming increasingly clear that they've never been pursuing what works. They've only managed to increase their own power at great cost to many. "

 

[sandorski]

The small benefit from lockdowns wasn't worth the cost.

Johns Hopkins Study: Lockdowns Only Reduce Mortality by 0.2 Percent | Mises Institute

That something "works" isn't a license for a regime to do whatever it wants. But given that lockdowns don't even work—and are morally repugnant—how can they be

mises.org

How Much Evidence Is Required to Abolish Your Rights?

"
The all also reflects a monomaniacal technocratic obsession with justifying anything and everything so long as it can be shown to "work." But, even if lockdowns worked, this wouldn't excuse the fact that lockdowns are premised on imposing widespread human rights violations on the population at large. Lockdowns deny the right to seek employment, the right to travel, and the basic right to contract for services. That something "works" isn't a license for a regime to do whatever it wants. After all, many Asian regimes no doubt believe that the widespread use of the death penalty for drug offenses "works." Similarly, it may be that torture "works" to extract information from suspected terrorists—although data shows it doesn't. The "success" of torture would not be sufficient to justify its use, and a healthy respect for human rights suggests such practices are unacceptable.

Advocates of lockdowns will argue that having one's livelihood confiscated by health officials is not on the same level as execution or torture. Even if that's true we must ask exactly how much evidence lockdown advocates require before they are willing to violate your rights in the name of "doing what works." The answer apparently is "not much." In a sane society, the burden of proof always falls on those who want to increase state power. Predictably, however, the lockdowners insisted there was no time to worry about evidence for their radical new scheme. And once they had the power, they refused to accept any expiration dates or other limits to their power. This is why they're constantly moving the goalposts, changing time horizons, and generally insisting that any opposition is tantamount to "killing grandma." But it is only becoming increasingly clear that they've never been pursuing what works. They've only managed to increase their own power at great cost to many. "

The main goal was to not overwhelm Medical Resources. Which occurred numerous times even with all the Lockdowns/Restrictions.

 

[imported_tajmahal]

The main goal was to not overwhelm Medical Resources. Which occurred numerous times even with all the Lockdowns/Restrictions.

Sure it was, that's why so many of the resources provided (remember the hospital ships) were never used. It was always about power and control, it still is for the leftists.

 

[ivwshane]

Sure it was, that's why so many of the resources provided (remember the hospital ships) were never used. It was always about power and control, it still is for the leftists.

What power and control did the “leftists” gain? Please explain wtf you are talking about, traitor.