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camelCaseAccountName t1_j25rdmz wrote

Reply to comment by SomePolack in New coronavirus subvariant, XBB, now widespread in New England by uxd

>This is why we never contained COVID, something that would’ve been possible.

It was definitely not possible, and actually never even the goal of lockdowns and other such measures (that was to slow the spread and prevent hospitals from becoming overwhelmed). It is simply impossible to totally contain a virus like this. Zero COVID is a total myth.

(And for the record, I'm fully in support of vaccine mandates and mask recommendations)

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magellanNH t1_j25y1nu wrote

IMO, it depends on what you're willing to do and for how long. China's problem was that they didn't have an end game.

Before the vaccine, countries other than China, like Japan and Australia for example, strived for zero-covid with pretty harsh interventions. Both countries took less of a hit to GDP than the US did and both had significantly fewer deaths per capita than we did (US 3,226 deaths/million, Japan 453, Australia 648).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_death_rates_by_country

Even China isn't guaranteed to end up worse off than us. Epidemiologists are predicting 500k to 1 million deaths in China from this wave. If that happens, that'll put them at around 1/5 the death rate we had in the US. Also, they barely took any hit to GDP in 2020 and 2021 compared to the US (in 2022 they did take a hit, but it didn't come close to the hits we took).

So if we're keeping score, several countries implemented zero covid policies and did much better than the US in terms of both deaths and GDP hit.

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SomePolack t1_j25rpcx wrote

Agree to disagree. I’m not saying everyone should’ve stayed home forever, but there were definitely more things to do before we gave up and let it spread everywhere.

Let’s not act like there was ever a lockdown - there was people staying home voluntarily.

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