Why We Need To End Lockdowns (at least in most places)

[Ackbach]

See this excellent article for a summary, with links, as to why the lockdowns are showing up as ineffective. HT: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yihchauchang/ on LinkedIn.

 

[devadmin]

This is a danger zone thread haha. Personally I'm staying put with social distancing and limited interactions. There are many cases where cities have lifted lockdowns and now they see a second wave. It's all good until someone close to you gets put on a ventilator. Not going to risk myself, friends and family.

 

[topsquark]

I, too, see a certain amount of safety in the lockdown. My problem is that the needed supplies have not been made in nearly enough quantity to allow us to get out of it safely without sparking another wave. If we don't have those then the lockdown was essentially useless. But I also agree that we need to get the economy back online.

Too much for me to figure out.

-Dan

 

[Ackbach]

This is a danger zone thread haha. Personally I'm staying put with social distancing and limited interactions. There are many cases where cities have lifted lockdowns and now they see a second wave.

Do you have some reliable (as in, not Far Left Formerly Mainstream Media such as CNN, MSNBC, Wikipedia, Google, and the like) news sources with information on when that's actually happened? I wasn't aware that any lockdowns had been lifted, but I'm happy to sit corrected.

 

[devadmin]

Do you have some reliable (as in, not Far Left Formerly Mainstream Media such as CNN, MSNBC, Wikipedia, Google, and the like) news sources with information on when that's actually happened? I wasn't aware that any lockdowns had been lifted, but I'm happy to sit corrected.

I know there are a few other countries, but here is one I found
https://time.com/5826918/hokkaido-coronavirus-lockdown/

 

[I like Serena]

Here's a reference how it worked with the Spanish Flu in 1918.
Various cities in the USA had a different lock down policy so we can compare.
Some responded late, some released lock down too soon, some were early and made sure...
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/...-curve-1918-spanish-flu-pandemic-coronavirus/Not sure how reliable National Geographic is, but I think the numbers don't lie.

I wonder which cities have learned, and which ones repeat the same mistakes without considering the value of history or experts for that matter. I guess we'll know soon enough.

 

[Jameson]

I cannot comment on much here with any authority, but if with any model of the spread of a virus the infection rate will be key. I'm not relying on SIR or other specific ones because I know they all have flaws. However, I think we can agree that a contagious virus has some infection rate even if we don't know it. @Ackbach any disagreements yet?

Ok if not, what would you recommend for the US if the infection rate of a new virus was 5x? That is to say that on average 1 infected person will spread it to 5 others. In this scenario of extreme exponential growth what should be done?

 

[Joppy]

Is it any surprise that reopening society is pursued by a FfEE?... Not that I know anything about it, but it certainly seems a good idea to restrict interactions overall. Frankly it appears western countries are struggling more because citizens are on the whole unwilling to subordinate and follow simple instructions. In particular is the case of the USA, which (as an outsider, with my only information sources being mainstream media), looks embarrassing and laughable from the management perspective.

 

[Ackbach]

I cannot comment on much here with any authority, but if with any model of the spread of a virus the infection rate will be key. I'm not relying on SIR or other specific ones because I know they all have flaws.

Right. I don't trust a one of 'em.

However, I think we can agree that a contagious virus has some infection rate even if we don't know it. @Ackbach any disagreements yet?

It's probably varying in time, particularly as the (highly unknown) pool of immune people continues to grow.

Ok if not, what would you recommend for the US if the infection rate of a new virus was 5x? That is to say that on average 1 infected person will spread it to 5 others. In this scenario of extreme exponential growth what should be done?

At the moment, given what we know about the virus, regardless of the infection rate, I recommend that the government recommend quarantining the elderly and the immuno-compromised, as well as practice social distancing and hand washing. I do not believe it is the job of the government to save us from this virus at all, and it is certainly not the job of the government to trample on regular human rights in response to it. I'm not in favor of any government mandates whatsoever in regards to COVID. Recommendations, sure. Right now, the states' governments' attitudes have tended to be that the people are idiots, and they have to force people to do certain things or not. These precise practices of quarantining at-risk populations, social distancing, and hand-washing, seem to be supported by data. General lockdowns do not appear to be supported by data.

With regard to the state governments, I am for the limited government of the people, by the people, and for the people. The job of the government is basically to write, interpret, and enforce just laws, and to defend the country against outside attack. The vast majority of other tasks that governments do aren't chartered, they're unconstitutional, and are hence over-reaches. The government has gotten too big for its britches. Give me liberty or give me death!

People die of things every day, whether it's COVID or not. The current extremely unbalanced approach to COVID (the COVID death toll hasn't begun to approach other big killers like heart disease or cancer, or even the flu) tells me something is amiss. Conspiracy theories are quite easy to justify in situations like this: there is a correlation between how socialist/communist a state's governor is, and how draconian the lockdown measures are in that state. My state of Minnesota is pretty ridiculous: Governor Walz is a borderline communist, and what we see is an extreme reluctance to give up his emergency powers, along with a constantly changing goalpost (that's been made fun of in https://ussanews.com/News1/2020/05/04/moving-the-goalpost-in-minnesota-a-f-branco-cartoon/) that, for example, Mayo Clinic, where I work, has constantly been either satisfying or anticipating. That, of course, doesn't imply that socialist/communist governors cause more draconian measures. But we remember that the new causal revolution shows that the statement "Correlation does not imply causation" should give way to "Correlation sometimes implies causation", or even "No correlation without causation." That needs to be properly understood, of course.

 

[Ackbach]

Here's a reference how it worked with the Spanish Flu in 1918.
Various cities in the USA had a different lock down policy so we can compare.
Some responded late, some released lock down too soon, some were early and made sure...
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/...-curve-1918-spanish-flu-pandemic-coronavirus/Not sure how reliable National Geographic is, but I think the numbers don't lie.

I wonder which cities have learned, and which ones repeat the same mistakes without considering the value of history or experts for that matter. I guess we'll know soon enough.

Unfortunately, the National Geographic article to which you linked is something I can only read for about 10 seconds before a screen comes up getting in the way of finishing it, so I can't comment much.

 

[devadmin]

The current extremely unbalanced approach to COVID (the COVID death toll hasn't begun to approach other big killers like heart disease or cancer, or even the flu) tells me something is amiss.

Heart disease and cancer are not contagious and we have a vaccine for the flu.

 

[Ackbach]

Is it any surprise that reopening society is pursued by a FfEE?... Not that I know anything about it, but it certainly seems a good idea to restrict interactions overall.

It is not a good idea for the government to force things, as it is not the job of the government to fight viruses. Recommendations, sure. But not forcing the issue.

Frankly it appears western countries are struggling more because citizens are on the whole unwilling to subordinate and follow simple instructions.

See above.

In particular is the case of the USA, which (as an outsider, with my only information sources being mainstream media),

Ding, ding, ding! There's part of your problem. The Far Left Formerly Mainstream Media (FLFMM), as I like to call it, is completely unreliable on everything!

You should trust literally nothing they say. For more reliable news sources, I would point you to the Epoch Times, OAN (or OANN), or World Magazine. In particular, CNN, MSNBC, Wikipedia, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and many others like them, even Google sometimes, are thoroughly untrustworthy.

looks embarrassing and laughable from the management perspective.

Well, I don't see things that way, since I don't regard the government as the agency that should be fighting the virus in the first place.

 

[Ackbach]

Heart disease and cancer are not contagious and we have a vaccine for the flu.

Well, sort of. The flu vaccine is equivalent to rolling the dice. It's a guess as to which three strains the vaccine manufacturers think are going to be the most prevalent in the next season. It's not an effective vaccine (look at comparing the number of people who got the vaccine and still got the flu, and also compare with those who did not get the vaccine and either got or did not get the flu), and it also has a large number of adverse reactions listed (see the vaccine insert published by the manufacturer). The flu vaccines do not appear to have used aborted fetal cell lines in their development, so I wouldn't have an issue there. I do have insurmountable ethical objections to using any vaccine developed using aborted fetal cell lines.

I realize heart disease and cancer are not contagious, but my point was more about the sheer size of the hullabaloo surrounding COVID versus cancer and heart disease and the flu. Different diseases, of course, require different approaches, I get that.

 

[devadmin]

I realize heart disease and cancer are not contagious, but my point was more about the sheer size of the hullabaloo surrounding COVID versus cancer and heart disease and the flu.

Heart disease and cancer cases aren't rising exponentially

 

[Ackbach]

Heart disease and cancer cases aren't rising exponentially

COVID cases might or might not be exponential - in some regions they are clearly not, they're even flattening out. But I'm a lot more concerned about COVID deaths than I am about COVID cases. If you have a person not at-risk who contracts COVID and recovers, then that person contributes to herd immunity. I view this scenario more as part of the solution than as part of the problem.

 

[devadmin]

COVID cases might or might not be exponential - in some regions they are clearly not, they're even flattening out. But I'm a lot more concerned about COVID deaths than I am about COVID cases. If you have a person not at-risk who contracts COVID and recovers, then that person contributes to herd immunity. I view this scenario more as part of the solution than as part of the problem.

I don't know, I'm not a virologist, so I take their advice.

 

[Joppy]

It is not a good idea for the government to force things, as it is not the job of the government to fight viruses. Recommendations, sure. But not forcing the issue.

Why not? Whether or not it's right is irrelevant here. The fact is they have a great deal of control, more than what people seemed to think was possible. This only leads me to believe that there is a veil of ignorance surrounding the nature of democratic countries which is achieved through marketed views of freedom, free speech etc. etc.

If say, before COVID, you dug around some legal documents to find out what governments can and can't do in a state of emergency (or whatever other declarations they have in place), and found that such and such a rule could be required of the people, would you be surprised?

Ding, ding, ding! There's part of your problem. The Far Left Formerly Mainstream Media (FLFMM), as I like to call it, is completely unreliable on everything!

You should trust literally nothing they say. For more reliable news sources, I would point you to the Epoch Times, OAN (or OANN), or World Magazine. In particular, CNN, MSNBC, Wikipedia, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and many others like them, even Google sometimes, are thoroughly untrustworthy.

Probably. I hadn't consumed any form of "news" prior to COVID and when it did, I only started finding snippets of gov. officials talking about what's going to gauge the situation. Now that it's all clear I'm back to no news :).

I had a browse around those websites you mentioned and spotted multiple articles on why we should be lifting restrictions. Also a lot of conspiracy related headlines and other nonsense. Whatever sells, right? That will always be the problem with "western media" and it isn't too different a problem from government run media, as in China. Who do you want to brainwash the public, corporations or the government?

 

[Ackbach]

Why not? Whether or not it's right is irrelevant here.

I definitely cannot agree with you, there. What's right and wrong is always relevant.

The fact is they have a great deal of control, more than what people seemed to think was possible. This only leads me to believe that there is a veil of ignorance surrounding the nature of democratic countries which is achieved through marketed views of freedom, free speech etc. etc.

If say, before COVID, you dug around some legal documents to find out what governments can and can't do in a state of emergency (or whatever other declarations they have in place), and found that such and such a rule could be required of the people, would you be surprised?

Probably. I hadn't consumed any form of "news" prior to COVID and when it did, I only started finding snippets of gov. officials talking about what's going to gauge the situation. Now that it's all clear I'm back to no news :).

I had a browse around those websites you mentioned and spotted multiple articles on why we should be lifting restrictions. Also a lot of conspiracy related headlines and other nonsense. Whatever sells, right? That will always be the problem with "western media" and it isn't too different a problem from government run media, as in China. Who do you want to brainwash the public, corporations or the government?

All news outlets are biased. The only question is which bias are you going to choose to be biased with?

Incidentally, I have published a https://blog.mathhelpboards.com/causal-effect-of-lockdowns-on-covid-deaths/ that you might find interesting.

 

[Joppy]

I definitely cannot agree with you, there. What's right and wrong is always relevant.

How poetic . Relevant, but contemplative and on level of individual opinions, overwhelmingly insignificant.

 

[MountEvariste]

You complain about biased media yet you point to The Epoch Times and One America News Network as reliable news sources?

 

[Theia]

Some facts first: I don't know how are things in real US, I've only read "mainstream news". The only thing I've seen in all sources - including this thread - is this punchline:

Give me liberty or give me death!

Which might mean, it's real and used there. I'm not American, but I see the situation in America extremely clear when using this line.

Then my deduction: See, government didn't give liberty. So, obviously, all who wish to, should have all rights to die. Or am I mistaken and some government in US has forbidden dying? If yes, I would like to hear, how on Earth the government is going to punish if one dies without permission doing so...:p

 

[Ackbach]

How poetic . Relevant, but contemplative and on level of individual opinions, overwhelmingly insignificant.

Yet again, we are, apparently, in radical disagreement. What is right and wrong is orders of magnitude more important than what is possible, or who has power, or who doesn't have power.

It doesn't make sense to debate on higher levels when the disagreements are more fundamental. I am a Christian, I believe that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible word of God. It is the only ultimate rule of faith and practice. Truth has absolutely nothing to do with who is talking. Truth is the set of all archetypes in the mind of God; a statement is true if it is one of those archetypes, and false otherwise. That is, God defines truth. Truth is not defined by oppressor/oppressed class status, a la Karl Marx/critical theory/intersectionality, all of which I reject nearly categorically. About the only thing those theories get right is that, at various points in the past, some people have oppressed others.

Just as God defines truth, he also defines what is right and wrong - what is right is inherently bound up in God's character. He is literally unable to do evil or wicked things. As God made all things, and he made all people, he has all authority, and we are answerable to him for whether we do right or whether we do wrong. And, as our ultimate destiny in the judgment is far more important than temporal consequences now (which even then are not completely unimportant), and our destiny is affected by right and wrong far more than power, I stand by my claim that what is right and wrong is far more important than power.

 

[Ackbach]

You complain about biased media yet you point to The Epoch Times and One America News Network as reliable news sources?

If you read post 18, you will see that I state quite clearly that all media is biased. You can't get unbiased news stories. They don't exist. The only question is which bias you're going to be biased with.

As the Far Left Formerly Mainstream Media (FLFMM), such as CNN, MSNBC, Wikipedia, NYT, Washington Post, etc., has abandoned the correspondence theory of truth (truth is that which corresponds to reality) in favor of the ludicrous claims of critical theory and intersectionality (truth depends on the oppressed/oppressor status of who is speaking), I find that the FLFMM is utterly untrustworthy on absolutely everything - but particularly science, medicine, and politics.

I don't agree with everything The Epoch Times publishes; here's an example. The Epoch Times published an article claiming that the virus specifically targets communists - a position I don't find plausible.

The only absolutely trustworthy source is the Bible - obviously the Bible is not a news source, but it does provide a worldview through which you can see the world rightly (with the help of the Holy Spirit).

 

[Ackbach]

Some facts first: I don't know how are things in real US, I've only read "mainstream news".

I wouldn't recommend that; see above.

The only thing I've seen in all sources - including this thread - is this punchline:

Which might mean, it's real and used there. I'm not American, but I see the situation in America extremely clear when using this line.

Then my deduction: See, government didn't give liberty.

Definitely agree. The government acknowledged liberty that already existed. Liberty is already given by God.

So, obviously, all who wish to, should have all rights to die. Or am I mistaken and some government in US has forbidden dying? If yes, I would like to hear, how on Earth the government is going to punish if one dies without permission doing so...:p

Everyone is going to die of something. I don't see why preventing COVID deaths should especially take priority over preventing abortion (which is murder of the unborn), fighting other diseases, fighting hunger, etc.

 

[Ackbach]

Incidentally, I have published a https://blog.mathhelpboards.com/causal-effect-of-lockdowns-on-covid-deaths/ (which by no means represents MHB) here on the MHB blog with some data analysis of the causal effect of lockdowns on COVID deaths.

 

[I like Serena]

Incidentally, I have published a https://blog.mathhelpboards.com/causal-effect-of-lockdowns-on-covid-deaths/ (which by no means represents MHB) here on the MHB blog with some data analysis of the causal effect of lockdowns on COVID deaths.

I suggest to take a look at the graphs of other countries.
South Korea is in particular exemplary.
They did their lock down very early - and without all that much force - not like China.
Additionally, they immediately instated drive through tests everywhere, and an app to track where Corona was active.
The result is that they have very few deaths, and the daily new cases are down to zero.
To be fair, they had previous experience with SARS, so they were more ready than western countries.
The USA is pretty much at the opposite end of the spectrum: late to respond and not ready for such a disease.

Graphs and data are for instance here:

• https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-confirmed-deaths-since-5th-death
• https://aatishb.com/covidtrends/
• https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/south-korea/

Oh, and here is a nice video that explains the effect:

It doesn't make sense to debate on higher levels when the disagreements are more fundamental. I am a Christian, I believe that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible word of God.
(snip)

Wait, wait. How does religion factor in here?
I thought we were talking about scientific reasons if, when, why, and how long lock down should be applied.
And what its impact is on lives lost, and on the economy.
The bible does not say anything about such things, does it?

 

[Jameson]

Ok I derailed this last week. Anything I post publicly here should be taken as just a user of the site. If I am going to use my admin or owner status to do something I’ll go another route. Maybe we can work on giving staff the ability to post without their badges when they want.

Anyway, what if we scope this into just the science of “is COVID as infectious as is claimed?” and “does social distancing help at all or less than is claimed?”. These type of questions. Political and religious stuff is way touchier but we can likely stick to the first part.

Who likes this?

 

[Joppy]

Ok I derailed this last week. Anything I post publicly here should be taken as just a user of the site. If I am going to use my admin or owner status to do something I’ll go another route. Maybe we can work on giving staff the ability to post without their badges when they want.

Anyway, what if we scope this into just the science of “is COVID as infectious as is claimed?” and “does social distancing help at all or less than is claimed?”. These type of questions. Political and religious stuff is way touchier but we can likely stick to the first part.

Who likes this?

I don't think it is a particular bad thing to have discussion on touchy topics. However, the community is quite small here and it wouldn't help to have everyone getting out their pitchforks at every opportunity. (Evilgrin)

 

[Jameson]

Incidentally, I have published a https://blog.mathhelpboards.com/causal-effect-of-lockdowns-on-covid-deaths/ (which by no means represents MHB) here on the MHB blog with some data analysis of the causal effect of lockdowns on COVID deaths.

Hi @Ackbach.

• Could you share the full Python code for the latest data cut? A site like Github would make it easier to digest.
• From the blog post you are looking at daily state level data. State level is fine to start with but I have seen an extremely extensive project to model the COVID virus counts all the way down to the FIPS code level. State level loses a lot of possible nuances that can separate behavior within a state like my own - Georgia. Atlanta is very unique to the rest of the state in its demographics and population density. Do you have any thoughts on this?
• Regardless of granularity, I believe you are making the claim that the daily new infection counts and daily deaths do not show signs of benefitting from "social distancing". There are other comments as to why but the data science part interests me more for now. I won't try to box in what you should say, but I think that you are claiming the data does not demonstrate that social distancing "flattens the curve" as we have been told it does. For the sake of avoiding ambiguity, "flattening the curve" is meant to convey the idea of changing the infection rate distribution from very skewed right and having a very front loaded shape to something closer to a uniform distribution. This may or may not change the total deaths but this cumulative death count is no the main idea, it is about the timing of the deaths. The argument is that hospitals have finite resources and if overrun, they would not be able to handle all infected patients which would lead to even more deaths. Keeping hospitals below capacity should allow for an overall better quality of care and monitoring. This is the argument as I have heard.
• I find your approach with the data you found interesting, but unless I'm missing something big I do essentially disagree with the main premise. You are estimating the 1st and 2nd derivatives for a cohort's death count over time. This isn't a widely used technique for time series modeling but it's interesting and has merit I think, so no issues from me with method of approximation. Using your results I think this is your major conclusion that is the crux of your argument -
  • The derivatives before and after social distancing requirements took effect show that the death rate did not slow down. It might slow down the higher order changes but this is not immediately provable.
  • Furthermore, a true "test" of the effectiveness of social distancing would be to somehow have the same location try both paths and compare. This is not possible unfortunately so we have to do our best to find two areas that are good proxies for each other. When you do this you do not see evidence of social distancing leading to significant differences in the death rate.

Ok, please correct me above if I'm not understanding you correctly. Without confirmation that nothing is hugely wrong I don't want t can't reliably know that continuing is fair. So I'll pause a while and wait for your comments. Until then I can say independent of this topic that it's so easy to talk about different aspects of COVID and actually be debating two different topics but think that both sides mean the same thing. This is why setting the ground assumptions and terms helps I think. As an example, on the effectiveness of social distancing we could look at:

• How diseases spread typically and the validity of modeling with SIR type methods. For these the parameters are crucial, one being the infection rate. When this rate is >1, the spread becomes exponential. When between 0 and 1, it will naturally dampen. This can be bad or not that bad depending on the medical nature of infection.
• Many propose that social distancing lowers this rate to something still larger than 1, but lower than without intervention. If true, this would be an argument for the concept working.
• There are medical arguments that can be made I'm sure, but I have no expertise to be able to really speak on this. I hope we all agree that COVID is either infectious or its not, and if it is then there are properties about it that are very helpful in understanding its ability to spread.

Last sentence. What do you or anyone else here reading my long post think is the ideal test for social distancing's effectiveness? With the constraints of reality and not being able to run the same scenario with just this one change and watch, what method(s) are best and remove the most human biases?

@Ackbach - If helpful, I can summarize this into 3-4 sentences and only keep the truly essential parts. I don't want it to seem lost in details.

 

[Ackbach]

Reply to Jameson at #29:

Very thoughtful reply. Here are my thoughts:

1. I really was interested in COVID deaths, and not the least bit interested in COVID cases. Other people might have been interested in cases, or flattening the curve, but I can't get excited about healthy people getting the virus for a week or two and recovering. That really is no different from the flu or a cold. Moreover, the vast majority of hospitals in the US haven't even been close to being overrun, so that the need to flatten the curve seems non-existent. I do get excited about people dying from COVID, though. If there are reasonable prevention methods possible, then the people of the United States should volunteer do those, and they should not be mandated by the government whose job it ... isn't.

2. My interest in the whole thing tanked when I saw this post. Those graphs tell me that the lockdowns didn't change anyone's actual behavior, and therefore could have had no causal effect on anything at all. Except the economic downturn, of course. Effectively, it makes my entire blog post moot! I just haven't bothered to post an update or to take the blog post down.

3. With everything loosening up, that's just another reason to lose interest. With the whole George Floyd thing, and the resulting catastrophes in Minneapolis - somewhat close to home for me - my focus has been elsewhere.

Obviously, there's still lots of work to be done. My institution, Mayo Clinic, is ramping back up appointments in a major way, and we aim to be back to 100% by July. Hopefully we can make up for some lost ground, and get people in for healing.