[ExI] the science might be wrong

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Fri, 18 Dec 2020 at 14:47, spike jones via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

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> We often focus on whether government has the authority to enforce a
> lockdown, but that is only part of it.  There is no scientific consensus on
> whether lockdowns are effective, and if they are a good idea.
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> California has shut down everything and mandated masks whenever one leaves
> one’s house.  I do ignore that one I freely admit, but compliance is about
> 70% I would estimate.  Today we had a surge of cases unforeseen to date.
> Perhaps the lockdown has caused people to stay indoors more, which I have
> long suspected is harmful.  As in New York, we are questioning if the
> lockdowns might do more harm than good.
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> Dr. David Nabarro, World Health Organization’s Special Envoy on Covid-19:
> “*…We really do appeal to all the world leaders: stop using lockdown as
> your primary control method. Develop better systems for doing it.* Work
> together and learn from each other, but remember, lockdowns have one
> consequence that you must never ever belittle, and that is making poor
> people an awful lot poorer.”
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> So… we might be debating government authority, while the government is
> recommending a course which does more harm than good.
>
It’s certain that a complete lockdown where everyone stays home for six
weeks will eliminate the virus. That isn’t practical, so it has to be a
partial lockdown. But a partial lockdown that is insufficiently stringent
may be more prolonged and cause economic harm for little benefit. There is
a certain optimal level of restriction which is to be determined
empirically and perhaps through mathematical modelling.

> --
Stathis Papaioannou
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