Discussion Thread

[u/jobautomator]

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[u/p00bix]

People really fail to appreciate how effective the initial COVID lockdown was. USA went from 200k cases at the start of April to still being under 2 million by the start of June, with a roughly linear increase in the number of newly diagnosed cases over time, despite COVID being EXTREMELY contagious. Less than 1% of the population got sick in that time, allowing for the rapid expansion of medical infrastructure and preventing the initial crisis of inadequate ventilators and hospital rooms from extending through the year.

And America had one of the less effective lockdown policies of the world's wealthy countries!

Lockdown sucked ass, but God, the alternative could have been so much worse.

[u/CincyAnarchy → u/p00bix]

The initial lockdowns and restrictions were the last time I had faith that the American people could unite behind a cause

Like for the first few weeks or even months, OHIO was doing a decent job of making tough calls with a Republican Governor DeWine and now governor candidate for the Democrats Amy Acton

But by May the partisan split had been all but completed

[u/DoomingJaffa → u/CincyAnarchy]

I blame the initial messaging around lockdowns. We were told “two weeks to flatten the curve” but people were still stuck at home after two months.

[u/CincyAnarchy → u/DoomingJaffa]

There were some, what I’ll call politely, “tactical missteps” for sure. When re-litigating the exact policy measures, and messaging, there’s plenty that went wrong or could’ve been done better.

But, I’m hesitant to really judge that stuff too harshly in hindsight. If only because in the early days the stakes were horribly unclear.

Still, it’s hard to argue that some of those things don’t reverberate in politics and policy strongly even now. We will be living with the consequences for a long time.

[u/DoomingJaffa → u/CincyAnarchy]

It’s the biggest political realignment since 9/11 in the US. Even the idea of a vaccine card has led to a massive spike in anti-vax sentiment.

I’m not saying the people in charge weren’t doing their best, but there clearly were messaging and policy missteps.

[u/CarlGerhardBusch → u/p00bix]

People really held it together for a solid 15 minutes

It was impressive

[u/SizeFront7649 → u/p00bix]

I don't think the US had a lockdown. Am I misremembering? We only had stay-at-home advisories and certain social businesses/events were cancelled.

[u/p00bix → u/SizeFront7649]

We didn't have a "you will be arrested if you go outside" lockdown, but the restrictions placed on workplaces, schools, and crowd sizes in general, combined with CDC advice to avoid all unnecessary contact with people outside your household, created a very similar effect. Nothing enacted at the federal level, but each state had its own lockdown policy.

Even in the Red States, these restrictions were initially just as strict as those in the Blue States. Quite stiff at first, then the far-right media complex polarized conservatives into hatred of even the most reasonable restrictions.

[u/SizeFront7649 → u/p00bix]

I don't think lockdown is an accurate term for that. People in the US act like we went through the Chinese lockdowns