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So after reading a misleading meme on the internet I was compelled to compare the COVID situation in Canada over the past few months to that in the USA. This is what I notice.
The Canadian stock market has crashed by a thousand points since the beginning of the year and COVID cases in Canada have **increased** 700% since mid june... Compared to america where the stock market has **increased** by 3,000 points since the beginning of the year (thatsa 33% increase) and covid cases has **dropped** by more than 50% since the beginning of july.
The issue with lockdowns is they look great to everyone who is too ignorant to understand whats going on, but they devastate the economy and do no good because the second you let up the lock down no one has immunity and the virus spreads like it is new. So in the long run you get hit hard in the wallet AND in terms of the infection. Meanwhile the americans approach may have resulted in more infection early on but fewer in the long term and without damaging the economy along the way.
@freemo I'm not sure you can handwave away the 200,000 people who are dead. The US has a death rate 17 times Europe; you can argue that's OK because the economy is more important, but you can't just ignore it.
The evidence of Sweden though is that avoiding lockdown doesn't protect your economy much - their economy slowed just as much as their neighbours, they just have more dead people. In a global market, it's hard to mitigate the effect of a global pandemic through local action.
@tim There are different aspects there that go beyond measuring if a lockdown is a good move or not. A large part of the death rate difference is two fold.. 1) the USA's tactic would and should have high death rate up front, lower death rate long-term if all else is equal. 2) All else is not equal, Americans have twice the rate of obesity, higher rate of diabetes, and poorer access to healthcare.
So because of point #2 we would expect a higher death rate for the same infection rate. Which is why comparing death rate is itself "hand waving" if we are trying to access the viability of the lockdown strategies themselves. So what matters is infection rate, not death rate (as that isnt influenced by the points in #2 nearly as much).
The fact is, since june/july Canada's infection rate has went up, and the USA's has went down, showing exactly what I describe.
The economy, and namely the stock market is **not** the main motivator here. The point is the strategy of not having strict lockdowns in its own right is showing successful based on our own trends of decreasing infection while countries that had strict lockdown show increasing infection rates, so it was a good strategy even without considering the economy. The fact that it also means we have stock market growth and not a crash is only a bonus.
We also cant forget that poverty kills, so it is hardly irrelevant.
@freemo you can say you *hope* that to be the case, and it might be an entirely reasonable hope. You absolutely can't say you have any evidence it will be the case yet. Right now, all you can say is a lot more people are dead than comparable economies, but maybe the bet will pay off in the long run.
For the US sake, I hope you're right, naturally. It wouldn't be a bet I'd make - I'd prefer to overreact early, when you know little about the virus, and relax later - but fingers crossed.
@tim Well yes and no.. There is plenty of evidence, the question is how confident can we be that the evidence ensures the outcome I stated. Nothing is 100% in science so there is always some room for error.
What I know from having worked in the past on disease proliferation models is that all the models we have when we deal with diseases that have the characteristics of COVID agree with what I said. What we also know is all the numbers regarding infection so far have matched those models exactly and that we have thus far seen the pattern agree exactly with what I said, Canada and europe has drastically increasing covid infection numbers while the USA has drastically decreasing numbers.
There are of course many other factors that could effect this, so there are no garuntees. But we absolutely have evidence to suggest what I said is valid, and that evidence has been consistent so far and relatively compelling.
@tim Oh and by the way Europe is showing the exact same pattern, since june/july covid cases have been going up and have similarly doubled, meanwhile in that same timespan the USA COVID cases have decreased at the rate I mentioned. Again showing the approach the USA took by ending the lockdowns earlier and not being as strict with them has the best long-term results on COVID infection rates. Strict lockdown means the vbirus spreads as it would have when new when you finally ease up on lockdowns, it doesnt work as a long term management solution.