This shutdown is far deadlier than the virus

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The shutdown is doing more harm than good. Here in the United States, millions of Americans are unemployed and can't pay their bills. Many of them don't know when their next meal is coming and have to wait in long lines at food banks with their families. They also can't afford to provide the necessary essentials for their babies and small children. Not only is this shutdown hurting financially, it is also hurting mentally. Ever since this lockdown, there has been a rise in domestic violence as well as depression and suicide. It is also going to increase obesity because people are staying at home in front of the tv eating junk food and not exercising. All of the governors and leaders who are keeping this shutdown in place don't realize or don't care about the other problems that it is causing. The only thing that this shutdown is supposed to do is keep people from spreading the virus. It is only doing one good thing while causing many more bad things. This virus is going to be here whether things open back up or not. Our bodies have to learn to be immune to it. People are saying that May is too soon to be opening things back up. When things do begin to start opening back up, it is obviously not going to go back to normal. They are going to have to open up in phases and take precautionary measures. I would rather it be like that instead of everything being completely shutdown for another month or longer.

Well, in simple terms, there are two options. Option 1, do nothing, leads to somewhere between 0.5% and 3.5% of people dying, plus other people dying as medical services become overwhelmed. Option 2, lockdown, hopefully reduces the direct death toll, stops health services becoming overwhelmed, and has a lot of side benefits too (reduced traffic accidents, reduced gun violence, etc.).

There’s no denying that there are costs associated with any option. Certainly the economy will be harmed either way, but much more with lockdowns. But at the same time, the damage done to human life by the lockdowns is vastly outweighed by the lives saved. If you look at the excess deaths associated with the Great Depression, they pale in significance compared to the deaths we’re already seeing due to this pandemic.

The costs of locking down are obvious to us because we live with them. The benefits are harder to conceive because they’re distant and mostly to do with potential things not happening. But there’s a reason why every world leader who isn’t a fruitcake has declared some sort of lockdown, regardless of their own personal political philosophies.

But bear in mind: at the time of writing, total global deaths so far from Covid-19 are precisely 0.4% of those from the 1918 Spanish Flu. When you adjust that for the fact that the world population today is over three times higher than in 1918, the figure drops to just over 0.1%.

Does that observation make me a 'fruitcake'? Probably, by today's standards....

This virus has been a dream come true for every wannabe leftist dictator, large and small, and they are all revealing their true nature. Leftism survives by keeping people poor and dependent on the state, and any crisis, real or imagined, or real but deliberately amplified, can be used to destroy the kulaks and drive even more people into poverty and dependence. The Left had been trying to do this for years using climate change as a tool for economic destruction; the virus gives them a chance to move even faster. And the more fear they can generate, the better for them.

??! !! Conservativism makes people poor by removing the safety nets in society. Everybody needs a safety net at some point, even if temporarily.

I would be interested in data on the changes in non-COVID-19 deaths. Other forms of death are not being tracked so carefully.

Right now would be the ideal time to take some online course toward a STEM degree, so that when all of the various quarantines are lifted, people who formerly worked in "wingnut" positions can at least qualify for positions requiring real-world technical skills.

But of course, I do realize that for some, it is more important to criticize the decisions of people in authority than to put forth the effort to be more valuable to potential employers.

The UK has been on lockdown for 5 weeks but there are still like 700+ deaths each day. How?

How?  They go outside.  They get the virus.  They get sick.  Then they die.  It's a no-brainer.

Some of those people are frontline healthcare workers, but it's also likely that many were asymptomatic or sick / hospitalised for five weeks or longer. Plus of course people get infected by their groceries or by short visits to the shops for things they need. I won't mention those who go out just for fun to break the rules and don't get caught.

Another horrible thought. Families could be removing people from life support, and doctors sometimes have to remove someone from a ventilator in high-caseload hospitals if someone else has a better chance of survival.

cvirus + shutdown = double trouble

this. half quarantine doesn't work. it's like wearing half a mask or washing one hand

If everyone had self-isolated themselves since when COVID-19 was first announced to the public it would be virtually done by now. No one to blame but yourselves.

I agree Kyle. Another problem with the shutdown is that the US is rapidly becoming a police state. There's curfews. People are restricted from entering some states. People in quarantine aren't allowed to leave for two weeks. The US is considering or has started tracking the cellphones of infected people. There's restrictions on what some stores are allowed to sell(like WalMart I go to can only sell groceries & pharmacy/medical stuff). People are not allowed to exercise their constitutional right of freedom to protest publicly. Plus people are being kicked out of stores & buses(I seen a vid of police pulling somone out of a bus) for coughing even thou when people cough it is much more likely they have something other than the virus like asthma, allergies, or acid reflux which are NOT contagious so people with certain health issues/disabilities feel they're not allowed to go out even for essentials. & the political party that is known for standing up for individual rights is the party that is doing the most to encourage all of this.

I'm also afraid by the massive increase in gun sales. People are getting so angry at others when they accidnetly get too close or when they accidnetly go the wrong way in a store isle(senior citizens are getting yelled at). I'm scared that if I get closer than 6 feet from someone I'm going to get shot.

Last edited by nick007 on 27 Apr 2020, 2:12 am, edited 6 times in total.

if litterally everyone had isolated, medical, emt, cops, firefighters, truck drivers, water gas electric utilities, store clerks, gas stations etc you're right that might've worked.

So basically lockdown is futile.