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Comment by raziel2701 | Hacker News Reader

Wait you're wondering if not taking any action would have had the same result? Or masks on but no social distance? Or both social distance and masks on? Because social distance will preclude many activities.

But in any case, in my opinion more should have been done, not less. Specifically, cut people a check so that they can afford to stay safely inside.

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I mean, the govt can make recommendations and let people decide what to do. I'm -not- an antimasker...and haven't left the house much since March. But it feels like our people will inevitably decide it's boring and give up, as I've seen not only in news but in my friend group. So it feels like we just delayed mass infection rather than preventing it.

But we have the vaccine rolling out now. So mass infection is not inevitable. If there was some leadership on the top and a working political system, we could’ve done a lot better

The.. whole point was delaying it by “flattening the curve”. We were not remotely prepared at all and knew nothing about the virus. Mass infection now is incredibly more safe because we know how to treat it, and most cities have extra buildings retrofitted as hospitals.

Infection is more safe. Mass infection is not. I was recently hospitalized with covid and got the experimental cocktail (remdesivir, convalescent plasma, dexamethasone, azithromycin, anti-clotting drugs, zinc, D, C, probiotics) that only became available a few months ago. It cost over $62000. How many people can afford that? And it requires hospital beds because it is strictly inpatient treatment. It's not without its risks either. It's really only viable if 1) the patient has insurance and money and 2) the hospitals can avoid being overrun.

Regeneron could change things. That's an outpatient treatment that could be administered at clinics to patients who have tested positive. The problem is it's simply not available and it's still expensive.

If you catch covid, have good healthcare and can be admitted to a hospital then your prognosis is very good. What we can't do is treat large numbers of people simultaneously. Mass infection is a disaster.

> It cost over $62000. How many people can afford that?

Anyone who isn't insured can, because it's free:

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/10/22/9259424...

> incredibly more safe

This was your takeaway from the article?

Why let people do anything if they will make the wrong decisions?

They do not want to stay inside, and that is the problem. In the small town I live now not far from LA, most restaurants are closed for indoor, as well as outdoor dining, but several places just refuse to obey this order . What do you think is happening ? They are packed to the brim, with lines waiting to get in and have their beer and fried wings their usual way. No need to say local community is split between outraged "conscious" citizens demanding managers' heads on a plate, and "freedom lovers" demanding first group mind their own business and stay the fsck out of others' way to have their regular fun. I'm watching this hitshow with both amusement and fright .

I don't get how these restaurants can get away with this. It's not like the police suddenly can't enforce the rules anymore. If I refused to obey the speed limit or refused to pay my CA income taxes, they'd come down on me like a ton of bricks, but for some reason, when a restaurant refuses to obey the closures loudly, visibly, in full view of the public, where are the police? Suddenly it's "oh, we just can't seem to enforce things, golly what do we do?!"

Not can't enforce. But aren't. By choice.

https://www.foxla.com/news/orange-county-sheriff-says-deputi...

> If I refused to obey the speed limit

There's your answer. The unwritten rule is everyone in California drives 10 mph over the speed limit and no one gets a ticket. More than 15 over and you're pushing your luck.

I think they were doing a thought experiment where you'd let it run wild in the beginning, and let people see the horrors of that, and let that fear be the motivating factor. Arguably fewer deaths could have come out of that strategy, because the anti-maskers and political covid minimizer have successfully spread the misinformation of "it's just a flu, very few deaths" etc. discounting the fact that the fewer deaths were happening coz of masks and lockdowns.

There’s been plenty of deaths to motivate us.

People still are spreading, and believing, disinformation. Even here, when the numbers came out of the 400k extra deaths this year in the U.S., 300k from COVID, no shortage of commenters were disputing the numbers and the causes.

One political party has worked so hard over the last generation to convince people that science and experts are the enemy, and now we're paying the price.

Half of what we're seeing right now is lockdown fatigue and a lot more people making the decision that the risk is worth it. It's not because they haven't seen how bad it could be, it's because they're numb to what they've seen, and 9 months is a long time.

> it's because they're numb to what they've seen

I observe the COVID-19 narrative is probably false, starting with the timeline for the initial spread of SARS-CoV-2 across the globe in November/December 2019. Like the good doctor said, "#containment was never possible" [0].

Many people, including myself, probably had COVID-19 before tests were available. I think people did much better surviving the dreaded virus before the medicalists were treating COVID-19 as a diagnosis.

[0] https://twitter.com/TaxiCabJesus/status/1334531533013536768

edit: Wuhan vastly under-counted their COVID-19 cases: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/12/29/asia/china-coronavirus-se...

I think he is suggesting there would be a strong information campaign about masks, social distancing, hand washing etc then leave people be while moving on with the vaccines and so forth.

On the other hand, if all the people would followed the restrictions to the letter it would been under control many times over, as demonstrated by NZ, TW, AU, CN.

This -> if all the people would followed the restrictions to the letter it would been under control many times over, as demonstrated by NZ, TW, AU, CN.

Yeah this is what I thought the US would do, as its a country where individual decision making feels like its prided above all else. I was absolutely surprised about this joke-authoritarian style regulations that CA and the counties tried to push over and over. Absolutely absurd.

With a different president, yes. Not with this one though.

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