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I'm in the same camp as you. Mind you, I live in NYC, where the lockdown was necessary, and probably still is. But with my NYC glasses on, I didn't think for a moment that the lockdown may not be necessary in other places.

A few days ago, I started listening to a podcast where the panelists were all somehow assuming that flattening the curve preserves the integral (the area under the curve). I personally always thought that flattening the curve results in less overall deaths, because you avoid the deaths due to the overwhelmed hospital capacity. It appears now in NYC we are at the point where the hospitals can easily handle all the Covid19 cases, with room to spare.

If you are in such a situation (hospitals below capacity), is the "area under the curve" a conserved quantity? I am still of the belief it is not: as time goes by, the medical community perfects the protocols to treat Covid19 treatments, so what it used to be a 1% fatality rate can become a 0.8% with the newest advances. However, while the "area under the curve" is not constant, it's almost constant. Is it then worth paying the economic price? Every single additional month under lockdown may drive a few more businesses into permanent destruction. Is that worth it?

I'm not so sure anymore.

0.8% is 160 000 greater New Yorkers and 2.7 Million Americans.

That's all the Americans to have died in every war combined, roughly.

That is a lot of people and I don't suggest most people would be willing to just allow that to happen.

Are we not greater than that as a civilization?

People allow 2.7 million Americans to die every year. Not that this isn't a tragedy! We should work hard and urgently towards a world where nobody has to die, whether from heart disease or cancer or coronavirus. And the coronavirus presents a variety of high leverage options that are unavailable for other causes of death.

But if destroying American society is the cost of containing the coronavirus, we can't pay it.

You fail to make the case that the choice is the straw man presented: destroy America or let the virus run wild.

The US has an immense set of tools and strategies available that would, if used intelligently, certainly prevent America being destroyed without compromising public health.

However, many Americans, as seemingly you do, refuse to consider or admit that these tools exist and can easily be deployed if the political will supports them.

The only thing “destroying America” is right-wing politics refusing to use the tools available to counter the hugely deflationary step-function we are in.

I didn't intend to make that case. I've seen many mitigations proposed that I'm wholly in favor of. By all means, let's hire 300,000 contact tracers, and close schools until the fall, and all wear masks whenever we're in close contact with strangers. Hopefully these measures will have an impact!

But I've also seen people propose mitigations that would destroy America, and use "political will" as a euphemism for "acceptance of giant quarantine camps for all sufferers and their close contacts" or "willingness to sacrifice all social contact indefinitely". I don't think it's a good thing if political will drives us to do things which are counter to our values.

Exactly, what's going to happen to small businesses and working class people in the US is a policy choice. And people that thing letting the virus run wild is going to prevent that are delusional.

> Are we not greater than that as a civilization?

Are we so great that we have totally conquered disease? That we can keep everyone alive forever?

Certainly not. To assume otherwise shows an astonishing level of hubris.

If you count by Quality of Life Adjusted Years, then dying at age 25 is a lot worse than dying at age 75.

Everyone's life has the same value. Old people, poor people, black people, people with diabetes, people who have had transplants, people who have had cancer, fat people, all have the same value as a 25-year-old who has had 1%-er medical care, diet, and home life since birth.

As if anyone is arguing this.

Your comments mark you as one of the people politicizing this. As if small business owners who have seen the data change and question why liquor stores can be open and they can't are all right wingers.

By the way, your comment is naive and foolish. Grown-ups in hospitals make the decision on a regular basis that yes, a 25 year olds life is more valuable than an elderly persons.

The right wingers deny science on climate change. Now I'm seeing left wingers deny science on covid19 antibodies. (They already do it with nuclear power)

I've seen 5 antibody studies all say the same thing, and the left wingers just attack all of them reflexively. Sweden was right. We were wrong.

I'm having a hard time making out what your comment says in response to mine.

> As if anyone is arguing this.

The comment I replied to literally argues this in its single declarative sentence.

> yes, a 25 year olds life is more valuable than an elderly persons

You literally just argued it.

> Your comments mark you as one of the people politicizing this. As if small business owners who have seen the data change and question why liquor stores can be open and they can't are all right wingers.

If you don't think declaring old people to be sacrificial is political I don't think you are living in a world that understands what politics is. If you think a policy based on criteria that results in denial of care to most black people, who are at a disadvantage in the "years of health" calculation, while providing care to the majority of whites isn't political, what is?

> The right wingers deny science on climate change. Now I'm seeing left wingers deny science on covid19 antibodies. (They already do it with nuclear power)

> I've seen 5 antibody studies all say the same thing, and the left wingers just attack all of them reflexively. Sweden was right. We were wrong.

This is definitely non-sequitor, and moves toward just ranting. It doesn't add to the conversation.

Equal value for lives is a philosophical position that one can take. People even extend this to life equality for animals -- the Jains, I believe, even believe that the value of micro-organisms are equal to the lives of people. That's largely due, I believe, to belief in reincarnation.

However, there are downsides to this philosophy. For instance, it means that any amount of resources should be spent equally to keep alive 75 year olds and 25 year olds. This approach can result in some seriously negative outcomes for public finances, which could be better spent on education, etc.

Lives can't be traded, so we can't know the market value of lives. But I'd wager that most people over 75 would trade their life for a 25 year old life, if they could.

That's only one way to demonstrate that most 75 year olds believe their life to be less valuable than a young person starting out. From a more selfless frame, most 75 year olds would also assert that a 25 year old should be prioritized over themselves

I can't speak for the greater New York area, but limiting to NYC, there are about 8.3 million inhabitants. As of today, about 12k Covid19 deaths. If it's true that about 21% of the population has been infected so far [1], that's 1.75 million, so a fatality rate of 0.7%. Let's say herd immunity for the very dense NYC is reached at 80%. That's an additional 4.9 million new yorkers who will get the virus. At the current fatality rate of 0.7% that's 34.3k additional deaths. If we extend for many months the lockdown, maybe we bring the fatality rate to 0.5% due to protocol improvements. That's a 24.5k dead, or about 9k saved. We are talking about 9000 people saved, not 160000. But keep in mind, the 9000 people saved are just the Covid19 victims. There will be additional deaths due to months and months of missed "elective" healthcare. People with diabetes, hypertension, etc, etc, who are not managing their condition properly because if you're not Covid19, nobody cares about you anymore. Who is counting these invisible victims? After you put them in, it's not clear on a net basis how many people you save, but it's probably in the low single digit thousands, if there.

Now, notice that I did not mention so far anything about unemployment, bankruptcies, tenant evictions, foreclosures, or any of the other myriad of economic illnesses. I kept the discussion strictly about healthcare, and who dies who lives.

I'm in favor of keeping the lockdown for a bit longer, but keeping it for many months doesn't make too much sense, even if you completely disregard the economic consequences.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22958352

We don't know what would have happened in the US if we hadn't locked down. Considering the human cost so far with a lockdown, I think 20/20 hindsight indicates that we made the right choice. We can't just assume that things would have remained the same without a lockdown.

And if things had become worse than now, how would that have impacted the economy?

This is the paradox that we are in. When drastic measures work, some will assume that there was never any danger.

Actually, your kind of wrong.

The USA didn't lock down. Individual states locked down, at different rates. Some didn't lock down at all.

Take a look at the data and see if you can find a difference between the early and late lockdown states, particularly the ones that border each other.

I'm amazed at how blind people on HN are to the fact that the entire nation didn't take a homogenous approach to this at all. We have 50 different strategies that we're deployed.

You can be pedantic all you want, but there was a lockdown. It wasn't Federally initiated, and each state locked down to differing degrees, at different times, but they locked down. No one said it was homogenous; it's amazing how blind people on HN are to strawman arguments.

Trying to tease out the data your asking for isn't possible due to inadequate reporting, inadequate testing, and the fact that travel between states is free.

I'm not being pedantic. In this case, a relevant factor that you consider irrelevant out of convenience is being ignored. Call it pedantic all you want. It matters.

Not all states locked down, at all. That matters. Travel between states, for the most part, fell to record low rates. This happened voluntarily, before legally mandated lockdowns were triggered.

You asked "what would have happened if we hadn't locked down."

I pointed out that not all places locked down, and many locked down later.

"Trying to tease out the data your asking for isn't possible due to inadequate reporting, inadequate testing, and the fact that travel between states is free"

It's not hard to look at the Johns Hopkins data set, which contains data at the county level for the US. Not much "teasing out" to do there. It's right there. If we use admitted cases as a benchmark for actual infections, assuming it's proportional at a relatively constant level, it's not hard to do.

You're disregarding the pattern of irresponsibility that necessitated the reactionary shutdowns. The biggest contributor being the national government, which includes the mainstream media, basically denied there was a problem for over a month while it continued to grow. The state governors were basically forced into draconian shutdowns at the last minute, because it was the only option left to them. Imagine the political pushback if say, back in February, state governors issued simple orders that everyone had to wear masks when out of their house.

Analyzing where we currently are within that context - do hospital workers have all the PPE they need? Are all companies now able to properly equip their workers? How about individuals? From what I've seen, most everyone in public is still running around in home made cloth masks, so it seems like we're still trying to regain our composure with basic supplies.

This is one narrow metric and there are obviously other concerns such as how serious everyone is taking this - basically zero at the start of March, but decently now - which can buy us a lot. We could and should see more types of businesses opening up, but these businesses need to demonstrate that they will be taking appropriate hygienic precautions. I was in a bank last week, and despite all of their new procedures, the rep I sat down with was literally open-faced coughing into his elbow. He shouldn't have come into work, but economic pressure and expedience are still overriding common sense.

We certainly shouldn't be talking about the current state of affairs as if they were a mistake, implying that it's reasonable to just let the economy dictate that everyone return to business as usual. The economy exists to serve humans, not the other way around. I feel for small business owners like your brother, but his actual problem is that black hole of debt. The appropriate way to help small businesses is to address the elephant in the room, rather than looking for justifications to go back to ignoring it for yet another decade.

I think you are forgetting that, minus NYC, the disaster didn't happen. Hospitals in states that dragged their feet like Georgia never even approached capacity.

Excluding NYC, the US is on par with Germany. We never came close to being Italy.

I thought for sure we were going to be. I saw data that led me to believe it. The data is richer now. There is more of it. I was wrong. Reality is telling us that for once, there is good news.

This virus isn't as bad, and the lockdowns can be eased. That's the data NOW.

My God, why is it that since Trump got elected, that every position on a factual argument turned into an ideological hill to die on.

I changed my mind, yet it's like I'm wearing a maga hat for saying it.

Regarding my brother's business:

His debt was no issue when he had customers. The government shut down the economy for the first time in the history of the US. He didn't account for that when taking out the loan. This decision now seems unnecessary. If data starts to show that I'm wrong, I will AGAIN change my mind.

I just wish others on here would try that themselves.

> My God, why is it that since Trump got elected, that every position on a factual argument turned into an ideological hill to die on.

In general I would say your perception is in line with the general divisiveness of our times. I personally identify as a libertarian, but when I talk to people I'm always perceived as $OTHER because I don't match their overall narrative.

But concretely, if you said specifically what should be reopened, or included details about how your brother was planning on keeping contact down, then there would be something constructive to talk about. I myself think there are businesses that are closed that should be open - the small retailer vs "essential" corporate chain thing is especially galling, especially for garden stores.

But instead, when saying things can be generally "eased", and even saying that the reactionary shutdowns were a "mistake", it supports obtuse action like Texas reopening malls, restaurants, and movie theaters - probably the worst type of places for people to remain aware of social distancing. (I'd take this back if I saw people in malls actually staying apart and following arrows, but after what I've seen in grocery stores I'm not hopeful)

And reopenings may look small business friendly, but rather: https://i.redd.it/f2ry8pgk84v41.png . Basically the main relief avenues for individuals and small businesses require being completely shutdown.

Framing the initial decision as a "mistake" makes it seem like you are repeating a talking point. The goal was to avoid disaster, so a lack of disaster doesn't imply anything. What did necessitate a shut down is a federal government that failed to act for two months, told people to continue on as normal, and actually interfered with the individual states obtaining medical supplies. It's like if a bus driver had a heart attack so one of the passengers took over and stomped on the brakes, and then was told their action was a mistake because they could have simply kept driving the bus.

> His debt was no issue when he had customers

IMO the debt was an issue the whole time, regardless of his being able to service it. While debt can be useful, we've had artificially low interest rates going on two decades, depleting businesses of operating cash reserves. Financialization causes fragility, as it locks businesses into narrow assumptions, and those assumptions can change.

Well, we really didn't know. This time is giving us time to make better decisions. I am glad we didn't gamble, I still think it was the right decision.

We did gamble, though.

We gambled that the virus was so bad that destroying our economy, wrecking the lives of 10s of millions of people, and seriously risking famine, was all worthwhile to slow the progress somewhat.

And boy does it ever seem like we were wrong.

All decisions are gambles, if you understand that risks are on all sides.

Sweden evaluated the risks of not locking down vs. the risks of shutting down an economy, and made a gamble. We took the same exact game, but bet on the opposite side.

As I said in my comment, none of us knew. It's just becoming increasingly apparent, based on data, that we didn't need to lock down as much as we did. The places that didn't lock down and were prophesied to be screwed, well, they just aren't. That's a tough pill to swallow for anyone.

Just pointing out, we DID gamble. All of us did.

HN readers are in a bubble. Most tech workers had college educated parents, or are recent immigrants to the USA. They don't understand the bulk of the nation they live in, let alone what it's like to be suddenly unemployed or have your small business shut down. Therefore, they only saw the one side of the gamble, and are blinded and insensitive to the economic destruction we have incurred by "playing it safe" on the medical front.

I'm not disagreeing with the decision that was made. I'm disagreeing with doubling down on it out of pride and not wanting to admit we were wrong. We were wrong by the way. Keep that in your head, because it's true. The data is in. We were wrong. The rednecks holding "Don't Tread on me" flags, without any data, HAPPENED to be right on this one, because reality is messy and doesn't give a rats ass about your pride, or my pride.

I WAS WRONG. I THOUGHT THE LOCKDOWNS WERE THE RIGHT MOVE AT THE TIME. The data says otherwise. I'm willing to admit this, but not many on here are. That's what happens when you live in a bubble. California's horrible wealth inequality (top in the US) makes this even worse. I have neighbors that drive pick-up trucks and run small businesses that have been shut down. If you live in Silicon Valley, you probably don't.

I really wouldn't phrase this as 'you were wrong'. It may well have been the choice best supported by the evidence and the potential outcomes at the time (I certainly believe so). It's just that the current evidence maybe now supports loosening the measures to a degree in most places (I also agree with that). I believe this is a much more useful way to think about it, because it avoids tribal thinking.

If you play Russian roulette and survive, was the decision to play Russian roulette a good one?

If you make a bad decision but it works out OK, then it's still a bad decision.

If you make a good decision and it doesn't work out, you still made a good decision.

Sweden made the wrong decision, it doesn't matter that they didn't actually become the next Italy or Spain, it was wrong to risk becoming so.

I think it remains to be seen if it was the wrong decision and will require the Benefit of time and distance. They fully expect more deaths up front but break even in the long run

By what mechanism? Increased pressure on healthcare systems increases mortality not decreases it. It doesn't make sense to me that Sweden could get lower absolute mortality by avoiding lockdowns.

Break-even != lower absolute mortality.

The same X% of the community will need to contract the virus to have herd immunity. If the healthcare system is not overloaded, then the mortality rate is the same, just sooner. We should look back after this has occurred, either through community spread or a vaccine has been invented and successfully deployed

I completely agree that the response may have been overblown, but I don't think it's right to look at Sweden for evidence. Just as we may have overreacted, it may be another overcorrection to say that we were completely wrong. In fact, in some ways their response may have been more drastic when you look at the numbers below. There are some opportunistic pictures of Swedes basking in a park, but I don't think that tells the whole story.

Swedish representatives have repeatedly called it a "myth" that there were not drastic changes in their lifestyle. The truth is, the Swedish population was extremely compliant and conscientious of recommendations, so that mandatory lockdowns were never fully 'mandatory' but the change in behavior was voluntarily taken.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_S...

-50% of Swedish employment is now remote

-Overall, travel from the Stockholm region had decreased by 80-90%

-85% of ferry bookings for a popular ferry had been rescheduled or canceled

-Popular holiday destinations reported a 90% reduction in patronage

-50% drop in public transportation usage in urban areas

-Stockholm streets have 30% less vehicle traffic and 70% less pedestrians

-All travel abroad recommended against until June 15

Laws enacted:

-Gatherings of 50 people or more were banned, with threat of imprisonment

-Expansion of sick leave protection

-Reduced access to bars and restaurants(although table service allowed)

-Banned visits to nursing homes

>The cognitive dissonance I'm seeing in the tech community on this issue is interesting.

Fear does funny things to people. It makes them irrational and incapable of thinking clearly. It makes them susceptible to mass group behaviour and lowers their resistance to authority. The last three months has kept people in a constant state of fear and panic driven on entirely by the media.

As people are getting over their fear, there's still that nagging voice in the back of their mind telling them they're going to die.

Fear of death leads people to act in contradictory and irrational ways. Death is inevitable sooner or later. Getting over the fear of death helps you to stay rational during situations where everyone's panicking. As your fear lessens, you begin to question decisions you made during that fear state because usually they're not the best decisions.

It's that whole fight or flight response thing. In the end as rational and reasonable humans think they are, as soom as stress overwhelms them to that point of panic and fear, the lizard brain takes over and people act on instinct. Fear is a powerful emotion, it protects us from threats and danger, but succumbing to it leaves you powerless and vulnerable to control. Nearly every dictator of the 20th century has come into power because their populations were afraid of something and they used that fear to take control.

That's what the majority of the world's been doing for months. Different people tend to come down from that state at different rates but as this goes on and continues to be not the apocolypse that was pushed on everyone, more people will begin to question what they've allowed to happen.

Inciting fear is a constant and age old tactic of those that would oppress to gain power over those they would oppress.

It's funny how the attitudes have flip-flopped from "it's just a flu, our leaders are just scaremongering" to "we've been far too complacent and our leaders should have taken action a lot earlier", and perhaps back again. I won't even pretend to understand this.

great post. One nit: I would not classify the lockdown as "the side of caution". The worst case scenario of lockdown (societal collapse) is worse than the worst case scenario of Sweden style intervention.

Isn't the measure of whether a decision was correct or incorrect always relative to the data available at the time? If I play Russian roulette and win, that doesn't mean it was the right choice to play in the first place.

The politicisation of the issue is tragic for that exact reason, it has frozen people into their camps, making it harder to make correct choices given new evidence going forward.