Ковидные хроники. Вакцины и локдаун.
Mar. 23rd, 2021 06:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nameless_one_dmПод предыдущей записью https://nameless--one.livejournal.com/755720.html завязалась очень интересная для меня дискуссия. В частности - узнал много любопытного про Германию от тамошних обитателей.
А ещё - в обмене аргументами с![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ny_quant я попытался сформулировать что именно мне не нравится в нынешней вакцинационной программе. Подумал что стоит это вытащить на более широкую аудиторию чем два человека - https://nameless--one.livejournal.com/755720.html?thread=5739528#t5739528 Мне кажется что мы там друг друга подтолкнули к тому чтобы взглянуть на ситуацию немного шире - а это всегда хорошо.
По ходу дела в дополнение к вакцинацииny_quant там упомянул локдаун. Я уже собирался ответить, но тут наткнулся на пару статей бывшего члена британского верховного суда лорда Сампшина, где он сказал практически то что вертелось у меня в голове, но лучшим слогом.
Февральская статья по поводу принципиальной приемлемости таких действий правительства - "Liberal democracy will be the biggest casualty of this pandemic" - https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/02/15/liberal-democracy-will-biggest-casualty-pandemic/
И свежая - насчёт того достиг ли локдаун заявленных целей - "Lockdown proponents assumed the worst when they had no evidence" - https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/03/22/lockdown-proponents-assumed-worst-had-no-evidence/
(заранее извиняюсь перед теми, кто не читает по-английски)
Доступ с сайту Telegraph какой-то хитрый - там то есть paywall, то нет - так что я на всякий случай скопирую оба текста под катом.
Любопытный для меня момент в первой статье - автор утверждает что в принципе можно вообразить ситуацию когда такое вот переключение на тоталитарные рельсы было бы оправдано. Но по его мнению COVID очень далёк от такой глобальной угрозы цивилизации. Я со своей стороны даже готов допустить что в феврале-марте прошлого года это было ещё непонятно. Но вот, начиная с мая, когда прошёл изначально задекларированный период под лозунгом "не обвалим систему здравоохранения" - дальнейшие lockdown-действия были просто ударом кувалдой по часовому механизму общества. Не знаю, является ли желание не потерять лицо и оправдать sunk costs единственной причиной, но то что это очень существенная причина - уверен.
Ну и чуток conspiracy theories на сладкое. Я уже несколько раз встречал мысль что Китай намеренно "рекламировал" Уханьский карантин как панацею против эпидемии и приложил руку к тому чтобы Италия последовала этому примеру. В статье Сампшина про это есть. Не хочу особенно ломать голову есть ли в этом какое зерно истины, но вот мысль о том как бы развивалась вся COVID история если бы пресса не залила западный мир картинкой из северной Италии - интересная.
The biggest casualty of the lockdown will not be the closed pubs, restaurants and shops and the crippled airlines. It will not be our once-thriving musical, theatrical and sporting culture. It will not even be the wreckage of our economy. These are terrible things to behold. But the biggest casualty of all will be liberal democracy.
Liberal democracy is a remarkable but fragile achievement. It is an attempt to meet the challenge of making governments answerable to the people, while protecting personal freedom. This is hard to do. People crave security and look to the state to provide it. To do this, the state needs extensive powers over its citizens. This is why, in democracies across the world, the power of the state has continually increased. It is also why liberal democracy is the exception rather than the rule. Democracies are easily subverted and often fail.
What makes us a free society is that, although the state has vast powers, there are conventional limits on what it can do with them. The limits are conventional because they do not depend on our laws but on our attitudes. There are islands of human life which are our own, a personal space into which the state should not intrude without some altogether exceptional justification.
Liberal democracy breaks down when frightened majorities demand mass coercion of their fellow citizens, and call for our personal spaces to be invaded. These demands are invariably based on what people conceive to be the public good. They all assert that despotism is in the public interest.
The problem is perfectly encapsulated in a recent interview with Professor Neil Ferguson, whose projections were used to justify the first lockdown last March. Before that, as Prof Ferguson related in that interview, Sage had concluded that the Chinese lockdown had worked but was out of the question in Europe. “It’s a communist, one-party state, we said. We couldn’t get away with it in Europe, we thought. And then Italy did it. And we realised we could … If China had not done it, the year would have been very different.”
China is not a liberal democracy. It is a totalitarian state. It treats human beings as so many tools of state policy. There is no personal space which the state cannot invade at will. Liberal democracies have good reasons of political morality for not wishing to be like China. Considering this issue only in terms of whether lockdowns are effective against pandemics, and whether governments can "get away with it", serves to reduce liberty from a major principle to a mere question of expediency.
We have to assume, since the Government took his advice, that ministers agreed with Prof Ferguson. Certainly that was the position of the senior minister who recently told me that liberal democracy was an unsuitable model for dealing with a pandemic. Something more “Napoleonic” was needed, said he.
Many people believe that it is OK to be like China for a time, because when the crisis ends we can go back to being like Britain again. These people are making a serious mistake. We cannot switch in and out of totalitarianism at will. Because a free society is a question of attitude, it is dead once the attitude changes.
A society in which oppressive control of every detail of our lives is unthinkable except when it is thought to be a good idea, is not free. It is not free while the controls are in place. And it is not free after they are lifted, because the new attitude will allow the same thing to happen again whenever there is enough public support.
Covid-19 is not unique. There will be other epidemics. Some will be worse. Other issues will pose similar dilemmas, from terrorism and climate change at one extreme to obesity and censorship of politically incorrect opinion at the other. A threshold has now been crossed. A big taboo has gone. Other governments will say that the only question that matters is whether it works and whether they can “get away with it”. In a world ruled by the empire of fear, the answer will usually be “yes”.
We already have a striking example. The vaccine, which was supposed to make the lockdown unnecessary, has become a reason for keeping it in force. Because there is now an exit route, we are told that it doesn’t matter how far away it is.
Infections, hospitalisations and deaths are plunging, but millions who are at virtually no risk are being kept in house imprisonment. This is being done mainly because a selective regime of controls would be too difficult for the state to enforce. Coercion quickly becomes an object in itself.
Liberty is not an absolute value but it is a critically important one. Of all freedoms, the freedom to interact with other human beings is perhaps the most valuable. It is a basic human need, the essential condition of human happiness and creativity.
I do not doubt that there are extreme situations in which oppressive controls over our daily lives may be necessary and justified: an imminent threat of invasion, for example, or a violent general insurrection. Some health crises may qualify, such as a major epidemic of smallpox (case mortality about 30 per cent) or Ebola (about 50 per cent).
Covid-19 is serious, but it is not in that category or even close. It is well within the range of perils which we have always had to live with, and always will. According to government figures, more than 99 per cent of people who get Covid survive. The great majority will not even get seriously ill. The average age at which people die of Covid-19 is 82, which is close to the average age at which people die anyway.
The Prime Minister claims to believe in liberty and to find the current measures distasteful. Actions speak louder than words, and I am afraid that I do not believe him. He is too much of a populist to go against public sentiment. He lacks the moral and political stature to lead opinion rather than follow it.
I hope that I am wrong about this. But we shall soon know. In the next week Boris Johnson has an opportunity to show that he has some principles after all.
The "sunk cost fallacy" is a well-known source of distortion in human decision-making. A decision is made which has destructive implications. The limited benefits and immense collateral damage gradually become apparent.
It is next to impossible for those involved in the decision to change their minds. No one wants to admit that it might all have been for nothing, even if that is the truth. They have invested too much in the decision to reverse out of the cul-de-sac. So they press on, more to avoid blame than to serve the public interest. This is what has happened to governments across Europe and to the dug-in body of specialists who advise them. Their recipe is simple: if lockdowns haven't worked, there is nothing wrong with the concept. We just need more of them.
What we really need is a fresh look at the evidence by people who are not committed to their own past positions. This is what the Health Advisory and Recovery Team (HART), a group of more than 40 highly qualified scientists, psychologists, statisticians and health practitioners have provided in an "Overview of the Evidence" published last week. It is addressed to non-specialists, but is scrupulously referenced to specialist research. It will not change the minds of ministers or their advisers. But it should provoke thought among the rest of us. We cannot contribute to the science, but we can at least understand it. Those who are unwilling to do even that much have no moral right to demand coercive measures against their fellow citizens.
The HART overview concludes that lockdowns "must never be repeated". They "serve no useful purpose and cause catastrophic societal and economic harms". It calls for a return to the pandemic plans prepared over a decade for just this sort of event by the UK and other governments and endorsed by the WHO. They were based on two principles. Avoid coercion and don't go for one size-fits-all measures like lockdowns when the risks affect different groups differently. They recommended balanced public health guidance, no border closures and targeted action to assist those who are most vulnerable. These principles were abruptly jettisoned a year ago. They were replaced by an untried experiment, which there was neither time nor research to consider properly.
Not everything that HART says is convincing. But three core points in this study have never been answered by the proponents of lockdowns.
First, international comparisons are now available which show no correlation between the severity of a lockdown and the level of infections or deaths. Sweden, whose conditions are broadly comparable to ours, has fared better, with no lockdown, no school closures and only minimal legal restrictions. Comparable US states like North Dakota (lockdown) and South Dakota (no lockdown) show no significant difference in outcomes.
Secondly, the collateral costs of lockdowns are staggeringly high but governments have obstinately refused to confront them.
Our own government's studies suggest that the long-term death toll will be about 220,000, about half of which will be due to factors ranging from undiagnosed cancer to increased poverty, which are attributable to the lockdown rather than to Covid. Even that takes no account of the rapid rise in mental illness and dementia, itself a big killer. Looking at the non-health effects, we have so far suffered a 10 per cent fall in GDP whereas the equivalent figure for Sweden is just 2.6 per cent. The consequences will be with us for decades.
Thirdly, the burden of the lockdown has fallen mainly on those least at risk of serious illness or death. The extreme example is the closure of schools, which has had exceptionally serious effects on the current mental health and future prospects of the young. Yet not a single previously healthy child has died of Covid. The evidence of significant transmission of Covid by children is exceptionally thin.
We have been addled by the so-called precautionary principle, which holds that if we have no evidence of something, we should assume the worst. This marks the extreme point of our risk-averse world. The alternative view is that you must have good reasons backed by evidence if you are going to stop people satisfying the basic human need for social contact, destroy their businesses and jobs and wreck their children's lives. If you don't know, don't do it.
А ещё - в обмене аргументами с
ny_quant я попытался сформулировать что именно мне не нравится в нынешней вакцинационной программе. Подумал что стоит это вытащить на более широкую аудиторию чем два человека - https://nameless--one.livejournal.com/755720.html?thread=5739528#t5739528 Мне кажется что мы там друг друга подтолкнули к тому чтобы взглянуть на ситуацию немного шире - а это всегда хорошо.По ходу дела в дополнение к вакцинации
ny_quant там упомянул локдаун. Я уже собирался ответить, но тут наткнулся на пару статей бывшего члена британского верховного суда лорда Сампшина, где он сказал практически то что вертелось у меня в голове, но лучшим слогом.Февральская статья по поводу принципиальной приемлемости таких действий правительства - "Liberal democracy will be the biggest casualty of this pandemic" - https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/02/15/liberal-democracy-will-biggest-casualty-pandemic/
И свежая - насчёт того достиг ли локдаун заявленных целей - "Lockdown proponents assumed the worst when they had no evidence" - https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/03/22/lockdown-proponents-assumed-worst-had-no-evidence/
(заранее извиняюсь перед теми, кто не читает по-английски)
Доступ с сайту Telegraph какой-то хитрый - там то есть paywall, то нет - так что я на всякий случай скопирую оба текста под катом.
Любопытный для меня момент в первой статье - автор утверждает что в принципе можно вообразить ситуацию когда такое вот переключение на тоталитарные рельсы было бы оправдано. Но по его мнению COVID очень далёк от такой глобальной угрозы цивилизации. Я со своей стороны даже готов допустить что в феврале-марте прошлого года это было ещё непонятно. Но вот, начиная с мая, когда прошёл изначально задекларированный период под лозунгом "не обвалим систему здравоохранения" - дальнейшие lockdown-действия были просто ударом кувалдой по часовому механизму общества. Не знаю, является ли желание не потерять лицо и оправдать sunk costs единственной причиной, но то что это очень существенная причина - уверен.
Ну и чуток conspiracy theories на сладкое. Я уже несколько раз встречал мысль что Китай намеренно "рекламировал" Уханьский карантин как панацею против эпидемии и приложил руку к тому чтобы Италия последовала этому примеру. В статье Сампшина про это есть. Не хочу особенно ломать голову есть ли в этом какое зерно истины, но вот мысль о том как бы развивалась вся COVID история если бы пресса не залила западный мир картинкой из северной Италии - интересная.
The biggest casualty of the lockdown will not be the closed pubs, restaurants and shops and the crippled airlines. It will not be our once-thriving musical, theatrical and sporting culture. It will not even be the wreckage of our economy. These are terrible things to behold. But the biggest casualty of all will be liberal democracy.
Liberal democracy is a remarkable but fragile achievement. It is an attempt to meet the challenge of making governments answerable to the people, while protecting personal freedom. This is hard to do. People crave security and look to the state to provide it. To do this, the state needs extensive powers over its citizens. This is why, in democracies across the world, the power of the state has continually increased. It is also why liberal democracy is the exception rather than the rule. Democracies are easily subverted and often fail.
What makes us a free society is that, although the state has vast powers, there are conventional limits on what it can do with them. The limits are conventional because they do not depend on our laws but on our attitudes. There are islands of human life which are our own, a personal space into which the state should not intrude without some altogether exceptional justification.
Liberal democracy breaks down when frightened majorities demand mass coercion of their fellow citizens, and call for our personal spaces to be invaded. These demands are invariably based on what people conceive to be the public good. They all assert that despotism is in the public interest.
The problem is perfectly encapsulated in a recent interview with Professor Neil Ferguson, whose projections were used to justify the first lockdown last March. Before that, as Prof Ferguson related in that interview, Sage had concluded that the Chinese lockdown had worked but was out of the question in Europe. “It’s a communist, one-party state, we said. We couldn’t get away with it in Europe, we thought. And then Italy did it. And we realised we could … If China had not done it, the year would have been very different.”
China is not a liberal democracy. It is a totalitarian state. It treats human beings as so many tools of state policy. There is no personal space which the state cannot invade at will. Liberal democracies have good reasons of political morality for not wishing to be like China. Considering this issue only in terms of whether lockdowns are effective against pandemics, and whether governments can "get away with it", serves to reduce liberty from a major principle to a mere question of expediency.
We have to assume, since the Government took his advice, that ministers agreed with Prof Ferguson. Certainly that was the position of the senior minister who recently told me that liberal democracy was an unsuitable model for dealing with a pandemic. Something more “Napoleonic” was needed, said he.
Many people believe that it is OK to be like China for a time, because when the crisis ends we can go back to being like Britain again. These people are making a serious mistake. We cannot switch in and out of totalitarianism at will. Because a free society is a question of attitude, it is dead once the attitude changes.
A society in which oppressive control of every detail of our lives is unthinkable except when it is thought to be a good idea, is not free. It is not free while the controls are in place. And it is not free after they are lifted, because the new attitude will allow the same thing to happen again whenever there is enough public support.
Covid-19 is not unique. There will be other epidemics. Some will be worse. Other issues will pose similar dilemmas, from terrorism and climate change at one extreme to obesity and censorship of politically incorrect opinion at the other. A threshold has now been crossed. A big taboo has gone. Other governments will say that the only question that matters is whether it works and whether they can “get away with it”. In a world ruled by the empire of fear, the answer will usually be “yes”.
We already have a striking example. The vaccine, which was supposed to make the lockdown unnecessary, has become a reason for keeping it in force. Because there is now an exit route, we are told that it doesn’t matter how far away it is.
Infections, hospitalisations and deaths are plunging, but millions who are at virtually no risk are being kept in house imprisonment. This is being done mainly because a selective regime of controls would be too difficult for the state to enforce. Coercion quickly becomes an object in itself.
Liberty is not an absolute value but it is a critically important one. Of all freedoms, the freedom to interact with other human beings is perhaps the most valuable. It is a basic human need, the essential condition of human happiness and creativity.
I do not doubt that there are extreme situations in which oppressive controls over our daily lives may be necessary and justified: an imminent threat of invasion, for example, or a violent general insurrection. Some health crises may qualify, such as a major epidemic of smallpox (case mortality about 30 per cent) or Ebola (about 50 per cent).
Covid-19 is serious, but it is not in that category or even close. It is well within the range of perils which we have always had to live with, and always will. According to government figures, more than 99 per cent of people who get Covid survive. The great majority will not even get seriously ill. The average age at which people die of Covid-19 is 82, which is close to the average age at which people die anyway.
The Prime Minister claims to believe in liberty and to find the current measures distasteful. Actions speak louder than words, and I am afraid that I do not believe him. He is too much of a populist to go against public sentiment. He lacks the moral and political stature to lead opinion rather than follow it.
I hope that I am wrong about this. But we shall soon know. In the next week Boris Johnson has an opportunity to show that he has some principles after all.
The "sunk cost fallacy" is a well-known source of distortion in human decision-making. A decision is made which has destructive implications. The limited benefits and immense collateral damage gradually become apparent.
It is next to impossible for those involved in the decision to change their minds. No one wants to admit that it might all have been for nothing, even if that is the truth. They have invested too much in the decision to reverse out of the cul-de-sac. So they press on, more to avoid blame than to serve the public interest. This is what has happened to governments across Europe and to the dug-in body of specialists who advise them. Their recipe is simple: if lockdowns haven't worked, there is nothing wrong with the concept. We just need more of them.
What we really need is a fresh look at the evidence by people who are not committed to their own past positions. This is what the Health Advisory and Recovery Team (HART), a group of more than 40 highly qualified scientists, psychologists, statisticians and health practitioners have provided in an "Overview of the Evidence" published last week. It is addressed to non-specialists, but is scrupulously referenced to specialist research. It will not change the minds of ministers or their advisers. But it should provoke thought among the rest of us. We cannot contribute to the science, but we can at least understand it. Those who are unwilling to do even that much have no moral right to demand coercive measures against their fellow citizens.
The HART overview concludes that lockdowns "must never be repeated". They "serve no useful purpose and cause catastrophic societal and economic harms". It calls for a return to the pandemic plans prepared over a decade for just this sort of event by the UK and other governments and endorsed by the WHO. They were based on two principles. Avoid coercion and don't go for one size-fits-all measures like lockdowns when the risks affect different groups differently. They recommended balanced public health guidance, no border closures and targeted action to assist those who are most vulnerable. These principles were abruptly jettisoned a year ago. They were replaced by an untried experiment, which there was neither time nor research to consider properly.
Not everything that HART says is convincing. But three core points in this study have never been answered by the proponents of lockdowns.
First, international comparisons are now available which show no correlation between the severity of a lockdown and the level of infections or deaths. Sweden, whose conditions are broadly comparable to ours, has fared better, with no lockdown, no school closures and only minimal legal restrictions. Comparable US states like North Dakota (lockdown) and South Dakota (no lockdown) show no significant difference in outcomes.
Secondly, the collateral costs of lockdowns are staggeringly high but governments have obstinately refused to confront them.
Our own government's studies suggest that the long-term death toll will be about 220,000, about half of which will be due to factors ranging from undiagnosed cancer to increased poverty, which are attributable to the lockdown rather than to Covid. Even that takes no account of the rapid rise in mental illness and dementia, itself a big killer. Looking at the non-health effects, we have so far suffered a 10 per cent fall in GDP whereas the equivalent figure for Sweden is just 2.6 per cent. The consequences will be with us for decades.
Thirdly, the burden of the lockdown has fallen mainly on those least at risk of serious illness or death. The extreme example is the closure of schools, which has had exceptionally serious effects on the current mental health and future prospects of the young. Yet not a single previously healthy child has died of Covid. The evidence of significant transmission of Covid by children is exceptionally thin.
We have been addled by the so-called precautionary principle, which holds that if we have no evidence of something, we should assume the worst. This marks the extreme point of our risk-averse world. The alternative view is that you must have good reasons backed by evidence if you are going to stop people satisfying the basic human need for social contact, destroy their businesses and jobs and wreck their children's lives. If you don't know, don't do it.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2021-03-23 07:09 pm (UTC)Признать что были не правы не смогут, так как впереди выборы. Да и не знает никто на 100 % кто прав.
no subject
Date: 2021-03-24 04:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-03-24 04:39 pm (UTC)На Пасху планировали сильнее локдаун, но потом народ начал возмущаться в комментариях, посчитали что юридически не все хорошо. И Меркель выступила и сказала - Отменяй, это была ошибка и это моя ошибка. И что тут началось - чем раньше думали, как считали и пр. И это случай когда политик признал свою ошибку (или партийную как свою). И это могла себе позволить только Меркель, так как ей в выборах не участвовать.
А для политика поменьше это была бы политическая смерть.
Вот и признавай ошибки :)
no subject
Date: 2021-03-24 04:49 pm (UTC)Нет чтобы сказать "но есть и хорошие новости - Меркель вон признала свою ошибку".
no subject
Date: 2021-03-24 04:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-03-23 11:05 pm (UTC)По словам Вавилова, смысла закрывать Ухань после многолюдных праздников нового года с ярмарками и толпами, дав трудовым мигрантам разьехаться по домам, не было никакого. Это надо было делать раньше, если делать вообще. Китай справился с пандемией не благодаря закрытиям отдельных населенных центров или транспортных сетей (как и в случае с мэром Уханя, начальником транспорта в Пекине, министрм по туризму - выходцами из провинции Хубэй, оппозиции партии премьера Си), а организованными действиями по дезинфекции транспорта, выявлению цепочек, налаживанию массового тестирования и проч. и проч.
За этот год там прошла еще одна волна чисток, где бОльшая часть хубэйцев была смещена со своих постов, многих арестовали. Как я поняла из статей и докладов Николая Вавилова на ютубе, премьер успешно подавил попытку раскачать свое правление при помощи коронавируса.
Еще один нюанс, довольно важный. Эта хубэйская оппозиция, которую Вавилов называет "комсомольцами", независимой организацией, не подчиняющейся коммунистческой партии Китая, всегда стояла за укрепление связей со Штатами и лила воду на мельницу международной финансовой элиты. А премьер Си за время своего правления сильно их подвинул, а потом еще конституцию переписал, убрав требование переизбрания. Вот тогда-то все и заверте... однако сейчас, после победы демпартии в Штатах, не исключено, что над нынешней правящей партией Китая по-прежнему висит угроза активного саботажа с прицелом на оранжевую революцию, которую есть кому поддержать извне.
Вавилова я слушала с самого закрытия Уханя, следом за ним расценивая китайские феерические меры и контр-меры - политические игры, и Европа на вирус отреагируев, максимум вывезя оттуда сограждан. Смешала санитайзер по рецепту из интернета. Опасалась тяжелой вирусной зимы, когда ребенку можно болеть по записке от родителей не дольше двух-трех дней, а дальше нужна справка, при том что очереди к детским врачам посередь вирусной зимы запросто по пять часов. Полетела в Киев на концерт Димаша - и тут внезапно как домино локдауны. Йо-пэ-ре-се-тэ! До сих пор пребываю в некотором офигении при наблюдении за окружающей д.
Насчет разумной альтернативы для немцев, была у меня мысль. Мы в апреле с мужем на великах катались и спорили до хрипоты. Я доказывала ему, что было бы достаточно позволить родителям оставлять больных детей дома, не требуя этих справок. И потратить государственные средства на организацую вахтового метода работы в домах престарелых, с тестами и карантинами плюс нормальными зарплатами для работников. Вот ты знаешь... прошел год, и я по-прежнему не вижу большого криминала в этом варианте. Но кто же нас спрашивает... Такие дела.
no subject
Date: 2021-03-24 05:06 am (UTC)Это странное противопоставление. Выявление цепочек заражения и массовое тестирование будет иметь адекватный эффект при ограничении подвижности. Иначе на каждую новую выявленную цепочку мобильный человек произведёт десяток новых, — и сведёт на нет все усилия по выявлению предыдущих цепочек.
no subject
Date: 2021-03-24 10:13 am (UTC)Дальше я просто не настолько хорошо в теме, чтобы рассказывать с фактами в руках, страна огромная, и наверняка мое обобщение кривое. Я только четко помню, что эти трудовые мигранты, разьехавшись в свои горы из прибрежных провинций и из центральных районов, потом не вернулись на свои рабочие места, испугавшись локдаунов. И еще четко помню что напугал их не столько вирус сколько внезапные локдауны и ограничения по перемещению между провинциями. В итоге экономика сильно пострадала.
Такая же история была в паре других мест, где на ведущих постах были хубэйцы. Оно реально не состыковывалось в логичную связную картинку, причем головотяпство отдельных местных чиновникв было настолько феерическим, что прямо напоминало производственные романы пятидесятых годов про борьбу с вредителями на предприятиях, например часть детективов британца Алистера Маклина или "Тайну двух океанов" про подлодку Пионер.
Что характерно, китайцы сами расценили действия части своего руководства именно так, поснимав кучу чиновников с постов во второй половине 2020. В общем, к сожалению я недостаточно в теме, но могу хотя бы ткнуть пальцем в русского китаиста, который всерьез занимался этим вопросом и держал народ в курсе дела. Если что, поищите сами доклады Вавилова в сети и решите для себя, насколько человек разбирается в вопросе.
Простите, чем дальше тем больше напоминаю себе Рабиновича, который напел Паваротти, так что пойду пожалуй. :-)
no subject
Date: 2021-03-29 04:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-03-29 05:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-03-24 12:58 am (UTC)https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformationfoi/deathsfromcovid19andallcausesbyagein2020and2021
и
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales
no subject
Date: 2021-03-24 09:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-03-24 02:29 pm (UTC)Я на первую ссылку тоже наткнулся пару дней назад. Дискутировал с одной знакомой онлайн касательно уровня риска. В England/Wales немногим более 4 миллионов человек в возрасте 45-49. Официальных COVID deaths в этой категории - около 1,200 (при том что метод подсчёта "death within 28 days of a positive test" специалисты-патологи характеризуют не иначе как scandalous). Но даже если взять это число on face value у принять во внимание что там резкий перекос в сторону людей с co-morbidities - то особых оснований для беспокойства нет. Ну а дети - вообще bulletproof.
no subject
Date: 2021-03-24 05:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-03-24 07:52 pm (UTC)И кого волнуют дети, которые потеряли в сумме куда больше, молодёжь, бОльшую часть года просидевшая дома в одиночестве и прочие. Включая пожилых людей, тоже сидящих по домам, не имея возможности нормально увидеться с детьми и внуками. Студенты, заплатившие за учёбу и съёмное жильё и получившие взамен ... (нет, даже не ..., а нехилый долг, только без нормальной учёбы и общения).
I am getting angrier by the day.
no subject
Date: 2021-03-24 02:39 am (UTC)https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-lockdowns-werent-worth-it-11615485413
вкрадце: вот прошёл год, и где же вы, cost-benefit analysis всех мастей, массива данных-то накопилось за год предостаточно на любой вкус.
С одной стороны, радует, что всё-таки не совсем униформично мнение и в масс-медиа аутлетах, но с другой стороны нонче теперь кто не с нами, тот антиваксер, и флажки продолжают съежать.
no subject
Date: 2021-03-24 02:21 pm (UTC)У тебя есть ссылка на текст?
no subject
Date: 2021-03-24 02:27 pm (UTC)Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced last week that his state is ending its mask mandate and business capacity limits. While Democrats and many public-health officials denounced the move, ample data now exist to demonstrate that the benefits of stringent measures aren't worth the costs.
This wasn't always the case. A year ago I publicly advocated lockdowns because they seemed prudent given how little was known at the time about the virus and its effects. But locking society down has become the default option of governments all over the world, regardless of cost.
More than a year after the pandemic began, vaccination is under way in both Europe and the U.S. Yet stringent restrictions are still in place on both sides of the Atlantic. Germany, Ireland and the U.K. are still in lockdown, while France is two months into a 6 p.m. curfew that the French government says will last for at least four more weeks. In many U.S. states, in-person schooling is still rare.
This time last year we had no idea how difficult it would be to control the virus. Given how fast it had been spreading, people made the reasonable assumption that most of the population would be infected in a few weeks unless we somehow reduced transmission. Projections by the Imperial College Covid-19 Response Team in London projected that more than two million Americans could die in a few months. A lockdown would cut transmission, and while it couldn't prevent all infections, it would keep hospitals from being overwhelmed. It would "flatten the curve."
We have since learned that the virus never spreads exponentially for very long, even without stringent restrictions. The epidemic always recedes well before herd immunity has been reached. As I argue in a report for the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology, people get scared and change their behavior as hospitalizations and deaths increase. This, in turn, reduces transmission.
no subject
Date: 2021-03-24 02:27 pm (UTC)I've looked at more than 100 regions and countries. None have seen exponential growth of the pandemic continue until herd immunity was reached, regardless of whether a government lockdown or other stringent measure was imposed. People eventually revert to more-relaxed behavior. When they do, the virus starts spreading again. That's why we see the "inverted U-shape" of cases and deaths everywhere.
Sweden was the first to learn this lesson, but many other countries have confirmed it. Initially held up as a disaster by many in the pro-lockdown crowd, Sweden has ended up with a per capita death rate indistinguishable from that of the European Union. In the U.S., Georgia's hands-off policies were once called an "experiment in human sacrifice" by the Atlantic. But like Sweden, Georgia today has a per capita death rate that is effectively the same as the rest of the country.
That isn't to say that restrictions have no effect. Had Sweden adopted more-stringent restrictions, it's likely the epidemic would have started receding a bit earlier and incidence would have fallen a bit faster. But policy may not matter as much as people assumed it did. Lockdowns can destroy the economy, but it's starting to look as if they have minimal effect on the spread of Covid-19.
After a year of observation and data collection, the case for lockdowns has grown much weaker. Nobody denies overwhelmed hospitals are bad, but so is depriving people of a normal life, including kids who can't attend school or socialize during precious years of their lives. Since everyone hasn't been vaccinated, many wouldn't yet be living normally even without restrictions. But government mandates can make things worse by taking away people's ability to socialize and make a living.
The coronavirus lockdowns constitute the most extensive attacks on individual freedom in the West since World War II. Yet not a single government has published a cost-benefit analysis to justify lockdown policies — something policy makers are often required to do while making far less consequential decisions. If my arguments are wrong and lockdown policies are cost-effective, a government document should be able to demonstrate that. No government has produced such a document, perhaps because officials know what it would show.
Mr. Lemoine is a doctoral candidate in philosophy at Cornell University and a fellow at the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology.
no subject
Date: 2021-03-24 02:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-03-24 04:53 pm (UTC)Да, ещё про Швецию — Джорджию. Меня немного раздражают сравнения яблок с апельсинами. Поскольку инфекция передаётся от человека к человеку, скорость распространения вируса не может не зависеть от плотности населения и местной культуры общения. Понятно, что локдауны будут куда эффективнее в городах чем в деревнях. Сравнивать Швецию со всей больницей EU не очень честно. Сравнивать надо с соседней Норвегией, где смертность заметно ниже хотя меры там были ненамного строже шведских.
no subject
Date: 2021-03-24 11:20 pm (UTC)(посмотрел циферки джоржии — с ней и правда сравнивать тяжелее; с одной стороны население примерно такое ж, но в джоржии плотность в городах куда ниже, чем в швеции; с третьей стороны население джоржии куда равномернее размазано по её территории, втрое меньшей, чем ёлки и долины швеции) Но это всё, на самом деле, не очень важно, ведь сравнивают не саму джоржию со швецией, сравнивают джоржию с другими штатами же, которые применяли другие стратегии, но пришли к тем же результатам. То есть аргумент скорее про то, что "смерть всё равно заберёт своё". Что, кстати, было и в общем-то посылом всего этого flatten the curve. Только потом флажки начали активно переставлять.
* — чесслово, не знаю почему столько, но вот уж сколько пишут; на сайтах с разбивкой чисто по регионам северная голландия показывает 211954 Total people infected, то есть 190к как столица региона похоже на правду. More than anything эти цифры показывают так и подвешенную ещё в том году в воздухе дискуссию о природе всех этих сравнений, сведённых к одной цифре на смешном сайте, и то, что от таких "источников данных" больше вреда, чем пользы. Garbage in, garbage out.
no subject
Date: 2021-03-29 04:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-03-31 06:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-03-24 03:57 am (UTC)т.е. вопрос скорее не медицинский и не научный, а политический. хотите вы себе правительство как Швеции, или как в Южной Дакоте (где губернатор не верила никаким предсказаниям, а просто мониторила загруженность больниц ). или вы хотите, чтобы вами руководили как во Франции
no subject
Date: 2021-03-24 10:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-03-24 02:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-03-24 04:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-03-24 05:00 pm (UTC)Это конечно верно, но много ли было хороших и правильных предсказаний. Вот например моё предсказание было, что количество excess deaths в Америке будет от 50 до 200 тысяч, На самом деле скоро будет 600 тысяч. Моя "модель" тоже была говенная. А вы сколько предсказывали?
Конечно вопрос политический. И знаете что ещё интересно? В обязанности избранников народа входит в частности и забота о безопасности и здоровья своего населения. Ну вот они заботятся — как умеют.
no subject
Date: 2021-03-24 07:47 pm (UTC)> ... заботятся — как умеют ...
да, вот Куомо позаботился о НЙ как он сумел.
при этом губернаторы Техаса, Флориды, Южной Дакоты
показывают какие еще бывают варианты.
есть отличная возможность сравнить уровни мастерства
no subject
Date: 2021-03-29 04:16 pm (UTC)Я вот тут наткнулся на статью https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/excess-mortality-across-countries-in-2020/ - по ней вроде выходит 437 тысяч (132 на 100 тысяч при населении США 331 миллион). Но я пока не пытался проверять тамошние цифры по другим источникам.
В то же время Worldometer https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries рисует под 600 тысяч только COVID deaths.
Боюсь что чтобы разобраться тут всерьёз моей квалификации начинает не хватать. Я скептически отношусь к официальной статистике COVID deaths, исчисляемых как смерти в течение 28 дней после того как человек классифицирован как COVID case. С этой точки зрения excess death без вроде надёжнее. Но по идее в excess deaths сидят не только жертвы COVID. Туда, в частности, "быстрые" попадут жертвы локдаунов.
no subject
Date: 2021-03-29 07:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-03-24 10:54 am (UTC)