Really, though, shouldn’t we be able to do something to protect the elderly or other vulnerable people without causing everyone else six months of financial hardship and lost relationships?”
″Six months...” the man squirms. “I might need you to do this for a year or two.”
Not exactly a fair description of what the public health measures have been. What country has been in lockdown for “a year or two” (besides China)?
> The harms caused by COVID suppression were larger than the harms of COVID itself for most people.
Most importantly, this really seems to strawman our poor bureaucrat, as he doesn’t even mention the actual point of these measures: to serve as a stopgap until herd immunity, ideally primarily by vaccination so as to mitigate the above harms + further harms caused by hospital overload. Meanwhile, vaccination is the primary thing that our actual public health bureaucrats have been hammering on for the past year. I get the feeling that this isn’t discussed in this post because it doesn’t fit the narrative.
Possibly, but I doubt the same can be said for the net hedon loss. The great-uncle who died of COVID may have been quite old, but he still probably had a few years ahead of him
In terms of hedons, many old people live in retirement homes under horrendous conditions. Some lose their marbles, I remember one who every day tried to escape while claiming “I have to take care of my goats!” Some forget that their loved ones are dead, only to relearn it and be sad again. Some have chronic pains. Some shit themselves because they can’t control their sphincters anymore, then stay in their shit for hours while waiting for the single nurse who has 10 other residents to treat before them because the house is criminally understaffed. Their only joy besides the family’s monthly visit is to eat shitty food and watch shitty TV. No, believe me, nobody would spend extra to provide better food for an elderly who might have lost their sense of taste and has no leverage anyway.
There is something like negative hedons. There are things worse than death. Can we be real? The average year of an elderly doesn’t have nearly as many hedons as the average year of a young adult.
Not exactly a fair description of what the public health measures have been. What country has been in lockdown for “a year or two” (besides China)?
Is there an end in sight? What country hasn’t had covid-related public health measures—especially on entry and exit of the country—for the last year? It may not have been a full lockdown (whatever that means) for most of the time, but public health measures have certainly been in place.
Just because it didn’t happen doesn’t mean that it’s impossible. To achieve the goal, you would have needed to seriously push vaccine effectiveness and not just declare that the first approved vaccine to be good enough.
If you look at what people who actually care about vaccine effectiveness do because they are mainly driven by personal benefits instead of trying to get a drug approved you can look at examples.
Stöcker gave more then two vaccine doses in the first months to build more immunity and on the other hand it seems that the official approved vaccines restricted the amount of doses that were given to make people more likely to sign up for the vaccine.
The other is the RaDVaC project that focused on vaccinating in a way that gives muscosal defense (the first line defense against infections) and also focused on building antibodies in a way that makes the vaccine more effective against variants.
Not exactly a fair description of what the public health measures have been. What country has been in lockdown for “a year or two” (besides China)?
> The harms caused by COVID suppression were larger than the harms of COVID itself for most people.
Possibly, but I doubt the same can be said for the net hedon loss. The great-uncle who died of COVID may have been quite old, but he still probably had a few years ahead of him: an expected 11 if he was 75, or 6 if he was 85. Those are years his family misses out on spending with him as well. The 10% of those infected who are still experiencing symptoms after 12 weeks (not depression: most frequently fatigue, cough, headache, loss of taste, loss of smell, myalgia), most of whom are likely to still be experiencing these issues for another 12 weeks or more, are not mentioned, nor is the impact of this on their own lives and livelihoods.
Most importantly, this really seems to strawman our poor bureaucrat, as he doesn’t even mention the actual point of these measures: to serve as a stopgap until herd immunity, ideally primarily by vaccination so as to mitigate the above harms + further harms caused by hospital overload. Meanwhile, vaccination is the primary thing that our actual public health bureaucrats have been hammering on for the past year. I get the feeling that this isn’t discussed in this post because it doesn’t fit the narrative.
(edited to add context to initial quote)
In terms of hedons, many old people live in retirement homes under horrendous conditions. Some lose their marbles, I remember one who every day tried to escape while claiming “I have to take care of my goats!” Some forget that their loved ones are dead, only to relearn it and be sad again. Some have chronic pains. Some shit themselves because they can’t control their sphincters anymore, then stay in their shit for hours while waiting for the single nurse who has 10 other residents to treat before them because the house is criminally understaffed. Their only joy besides the family’s monthly visit is to eat shitty food and watch shitty TV. No, believe me, nobody would spend extra to provide better food for an elderly who might have lost their sense of taste and has no leverage anyway.
There is something like negative hedons. There are things worse than death. Can we be real? The average year of an elderly doesn’t have nearly as many hedons as the average year of a young adult.
Is there an end in sight? What country hasn’t had covid-related public health measures—especially on entry and exit of the country—for the last year? It may not have been a full lockdown (whatever that means) for most of the time, but public health measures have certainly been in place.
Vaccinating to herd immunity proved impossible
If you look at what people who actually care about vaccine effectiveness do because they are mainly driven by personal benefits instead of trying to get a drug approved you can look at examples.
Stöcker gave more then two vaccine doses in the first months to build more immunity and on the other hand it seems that the official approved vaccines restricted the amount of doses that were given to make people more likely to sign up for the vaccine.
The other is the RaDVaC project that focused on vaccinating in a way that gives muscosal defense (the first line defense against infections) and also focused on building antibodies in a way that makes the vaccine more effective against variants.
More dakka would have been possible.