10 thoughts on “Lockdowns”

  2. The lock-downs were never intended to stop the spread, only slow it to keep the hospitals from being overwhelmed. The question that should have been asked but never was, was how small a blip was acceptable and how many should be expected? Somehow that main reasoning got lost in the panic.

    Nor did putting infected elderly back into nursing homes among the non-infected. That was just plain stupid and we all know how hard it is to fix that.

    The other factor was that COVID was being spread by a corona-virus, which are known to mutate like crazy. It should have been well anticipated that we’d be dealing with two, three or more strains of the virus. Thank goodness the pathology appears to decrease with the newer more infectious strain. That may not remain the case, but let’s hope. From a natural selection point of view, mutations that favor preserving the host for future infection would seem preferential to a virus.

    Then there were the ~1,000 members of the medical community who did not do themselves any favors with public credibility with this asinine declaration:

    https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Jyfn4Wd2i6bRi12ePghMHtX3ys1b7K1A/view

    Gee if only corona-viruses were as politically aware.
    My suggestion: If you see your doctor on this list, I think you might want to re-consider your health care choices.

    As per masking goes. If masking were sufficient to truly protect you from infection, then why does BSL-4 containment protocol call for a full body pressure suit with positive pressure maintained while in a lab that is kept at below ambient atmospheric pressure?

    Should you be concerned if you can smell odors from smoke particles through you mask, when such particles are typically much larger than your average corona-virus?

    Oh but do follow the push-back er, I mean “The Science”. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

    1. Funny how the list is sorted by first letter. Not only do you have to know your doctor’s first name, by all the ones that preceeded their name with a salutation are sorted separately, all the “Dr” and “Dr.” doctors in two categories under D. Plus a lot of these doctors have funny names. Someone should do a study to find out if funny name doctors correlate with asshole doctors.

      1. Was the list compiled by someone from Iceland perhaps?

        I have noticed more and more fiction, lists and whatnot that don’t follow the Book of Style and instead use some bastardized cellphone texting ‘format’….

  3. I’ve got mixed feelings on this. On one hand, I think lockdowns actually do have an arguable use in this case; as originally said, to “flatten the curve” early in the pandemic, to avoid overloading the hospitals (which would have cost lives). I was fortunate; my state, due to not being run by boot-licking Nazis, never had a lockdown. We had a few restrictions (outdoor-only dining, closed bars and gyms) for a few weeks, which was bad enough.

    I thus found “Two weeks to flatten the curve” problematic, but justifiable, sort of, in some circumstances. Certainly nothing past that. And I was wrong; accepting that led to the horrendous excess and outright authoritarianism we’ve seen since, which is worse than any virus.

    1. What has been done in the last two years to make sure that in the future there’s not another need to take “two weeks to flatten the curve”? As far as I can tell, all of our so-called experts have suggested nor done nothing to mitigate a new, future “pandemic.” (Like all good little bureaucrats, when that does happen, they’ll just suggest new variations on what didn’t work previously.)

    2. The initial response when the no one knew the severity of the infection had some sort of reason (i.e. “What if it was another Spanish Flu (1918) in the offing?”). The continued kabuki theater has got more than tiresome.

  4. Actual lockdowns lasted only two months and even those weren’t complete. About 88% of the alpha variant deaths occurred later and not during the lockdowns. So one could easily argue that the lockdowns delayed the alpha deaths and so spread the curve and potentially saved lives. Metanalysis frequently fail to show associations. Not sure why.

  5. I used to use the 5-ply surgical masks while mowing my lawn, as well as painters’ masks when that was all I had. All I can get now is the 3-ply made in Wuhan, China (literally!). The sort of work, though I tend to drool in them while mowing. I keep a couple in the doorwell of my car for when I have to go in a mask-mandatory place (pharmacies and, of course, Duke Cancer Center [where I wore the 5-plies pre-COVID anyway]). I reuse them until they get contaminated (usually with post-prandial drool; I am missing a front tooth and post-cancer plastic surgery has left me with looser lips than previously).

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