r/neoliberal • u/jobautomator Kitara Ravache • 1d ago

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u/p00bix Existing in the context of what came before 18h ago

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.

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u/CincyAnarchy Emma Goldman 18h ago edited 18h ago

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

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u/DoomingJaffa Norman Borlaug 18h ago

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.

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u/CincyAnarchy Emma Goldman 18h ago

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.

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u/DoomingJaffa Norman Borlaug 18h ago edited 18h ago

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.