Universities' Covid Policies Defy Science and Reason | Hacker News Reader

Universities' Covid Policies Defy Science and Reason

bariweiss.substack.com

13 pointslando23198 comments

It's interesting how all articles against measures to stop the spread of COVID-19 seem to ignore/gloss over:

1. What would the statistics be without any measures? We saw what happened... everywhere... That chose to go "herd immunity".

2. Are the two "sides" truly equal? The author says Georgetown is imposing tests, quarantines, etc... Even if you include a more difficult learning experience because of remote learning, is that truly as bad as the side effects of not having those measures? (see #1, Italy early on, Sweden early on, etc... Vs places like NZ and Taiwan) This brings me to:

3. Why is it fine because "only 0.001%" of the population died in the past two years? In the US alone there are ~40mm people in the 15-24 age group (conveniently chosen, how many 15-18 year olds are in college versus 24+ year olds?), articles like this always something that boils down to "it's fine that ~40k YOUNG ADULTS DIE". "oh, they are unvaccinated and fat!!". So what??

I get it, it really sucks to be inconvenienced; masks, tests, quarantines are awful; education is going to suffer somewhat... But why is everyone so cavalier about free, young, innocent people dying like that? And not a pleasant death either.

Sorry for the rant, stay safe.

2. Do hyperrestrictive regimens perform significantly better than open regimens in the long run? What is the justification for the immense economic and human costs of hyperrestrictions?

3. The math is wrong. 0.001% of 40M is 400. Which could have been people with serious comorbidities that would have fallen prey to flu or other respiratory viruses.

4. By now, everyone that wanted to is vaccinated. Which reduces the cost of severe covid by another order of magnitude.

2. How would we possibly know? The fact is in the short term, open measures are not working. Can you expand on the immense economic and human costs? Are you accounting for the economic and human impact from the millions of deaths from failed open measures? I agree there is a cost, my view is that the deaths also carry a great cost to those close to the dead, which extend the economic and human costs from the deaths themselves.

3. I noticed that, couldn't figure out how to edit, it may not be possible? But yes, I'm aware it's just this subgroup, I just still think it's very careless to brush them off. Yes, statistics, etc... But there is a human element being lost, imo.

4. I agree, sadly. At this point it seems people agreed that COVID is inevitable. But that made me think of another point these articles/advocates for open measures often gloss over: what are the LONG term effects of COVID? Is it even possible to know?

5. Yet another: what about new variants? Open measures = more people get COVID = more likely to have new variants, obviously not as linearly, but you see my point, I hope.

In any case, I'm not saying there aren't awful costs for strict measures, but the devastation brought from COVID is something I hope does not come to anyone's family/friends. And even more so about this article, just feels like a lot of complaining about wearing a mask, being in a room alone, learning over zoom, all things that are fairly inconsequential

Economic costs. For example, the US deficit in 2020 and 2021 is 3T dollars each, compared with .5T - 1T of previous years. This will weigh on generations to come. We are on the brink of completely wrecking the US economy and the US dollar.

Human costs. Spike in suicides, spike in drug overdoses, spike in crime, people disconnected from family and friends, spike in people abandoning their jobs, a generation of kids lost a year of school, mass delayed medical procedures, mass missed childhood vaccinations. Does any of this matter?

Some places (Austria, Canada, France, Germany, NY, CA) are openly forcing complete isolation from society of unvaccinated people (no work, no trade, no travel). The unvaccinated population is not negligible, 10-25%. This is on the level of crimes against humanity, surpassing even WW2 casualty lists. Is this a cost we should consider, or we'll simply dispense of 10-25% of the population with no second thoughts?

The cold reality is that we simply do not have the technology to stop the virus. We are using sand bags to fight a tsunami. Perhaps we can delay it for some time in a few select areas, but the wave is going to raise either way.

Yes, I agree that these costs all exist. What were those same costs where countries kept open measures, on top of the resulting deaths? I honestly can't even find that information, but it seems that it's not being factored in most calculations. It's always "open is bad because increased deaths/infections, strict is bad for the economy". I gather from the world data that the open measures have a comparable economic and human cost, on top of and also from the increased infection rate.

I think your final point is the sad truth, but not because of not having the technology: people, especially in the US, are ultra individualistic. If people thought of the folks around them as real humans with lives that would be devastated by such a disease, we wouldn't have a need for any government measures. But people decided not to wear masks. People decided not to quarantine properly. People decided to write articles such as this, condemning the few institutions that (for whatever reason) are doing even the bare minimum. Appreciate your thoughts.

Forgot to address your point about the imposed isolation: this is a response to the person's individual liberty to choose not to get the vaccine. Yes, you have the freedom to choose to be unvaccinated, but you have to deal with the consequences of your actions.

If your immuno-compromised neighbor gets COVID because you chose not to get vaccinated and are not in isolation, then they are paying the consequences of your decisions. I agree, they should not be ignored, but they should be educated on the importance of public health measures. Sadly, again though, some people just cannot and will not be convinced to care about their neighbors.

> "it's fine that ~40k YOUNG ADULTS DIE". "oh, they are unvaccinated and fat!!"

The colleges discussed in this article are requiring all students to be vaccinated, so we're talking about a group that's at significantly lower risk of death or severe disease.

What is the rationale for colleges holding their students to more stringent standards (e.g., random testing, travel forbidden) than the CDC recommends for everyone else? (My guess is that it's colleges' deathly fear of being sued if a student happens to die of Covid.)

I got the math wrong, more like 400, but still: yes, the group is at significantly lower risk of death. What would you say is a valid explanation of "let's make things more open" to the people close to those young adults who died? Personally I'm lost for words, but maybe I'm alone? It just feels very easy to say "the risk is low", but what about if YOU were a high risk? What if YOU had HIV or other immune system issues? What if you're allergic to the vaccine and have respiratory problems? Yes, it's a TINY group. But can you honestly say you'd be OK with reading things that imply you literally don't matter to those around you. I'm not even talking about some vague BS "my fellow man" type s**, just imagine your dorm neighbor has HIV which he got from his mom at birth, would you be cool with open measures? That's not a non-existent person, these people are real.

The rationale is that the CDC measures have proven ineffective and they've shown to not have health as their priority, to say the least. The shift to 5 days quarantine came a few days after an urge from the Delta CEO, I believe. Fauci's own justification did not involve much health, it was all about the economy. The CDC was also ignored by the very same people saying that we should listen to the CDC now, just like vice versa. Yet, you can look at the data and see that the US had 1mm cases in a single day and ICUs are starting to get overwhelmed again. Not days after the CDC's measures.

And yes, the colleges might be doing this to cover their ass, but if the end result is lessening the spread of a brand new disease that has already killed a lot and severely damaged many others, I'm OK with that.

TLDR: people are still brushing off the death of a large number of young adults because they don't want to be inconvenienced. Now might even be too late, but I'm personally not a fan of "ay man, we tried, let's just run it and see how it goes" when it comes to this.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com