No, I'm ignoring where you're placing the goalposts. I agree with you that certain flavors of lockdowns do not provide sufficient benefits.
But you seem to be under the impression that there exists no form of lockdown that works. That's simply not true. We've already seen various real-world examples of successful lockdowns. China did them. New Zealand did so successfully in 2020. Italy did them when they were first hit.
Lockdowns simply work. The virus cannot spread between people that are isolated from each other. That's simple scientific fact. It's scientifically known how the virus transmits itself.
Take a simple experiment. 2 rooms opposing sides of the planet. 1 person in each room. 1 person infected. 1 person uninfected. There's simply no way the infected person can infect the uninfected person. They would need to get into contact with each other to allow the virus to spread.
If you keep the entire population locked up. If you implement a total curfew. Police the streets so that everyone stays inside. There is no doubt spreading will be reduced significantly. But we don't want to live in China.
So the question isn't if lockdowns work. They work perfectly. The question is what form of lockdown outweighs the costs to warrant putting them in place.
I do not believe you are not having this discussion in good faith. If you can't respond to the actual concerns of lockdown skeptics (read: the expressed opinion of a substantial portion of the world's experts which enjoyed near-consensus until 1.5 years ago) then I don't understand what you are trying to do.
> We've already seen various real-world examples of successful lockdowns. China did them. New Zealand did so successfully in 2020. Italy did them when they were first hit.
This is absolute, total nonsense. Neither China nor New Zealand have implemented anything resembling a successful strategy in anything but the very short-term. Both are still dealing with this virus, and are _further_ from endemic equilibrium than Florida and Sweden (which also made terrible mistakes obviously).
> Take a simple experiment. 2 rooms opposing sides of the planet. 1 person in each room. 1 person infected. 1 person uninfected. There's simply no way the infected person can infect the uninfected person. They would need to get into contact with each other to allow the virus to spread.
I don't understand how you can tell this story when it is so obviously empirically false.
There were _zero_ infected people only two years ago. Now there have been billions of cases.
It seems that you don't really fully believe in germ theory? Or something?
In your experiment, I guarantee the uninfected person will eventually become infected, via contact with animal reservoirs if not the normal course of living and making contact for routine purposes such as acquiring food and medical care.
I'll give you an even more strident experiment: take two people, both uninfected with H3N2, no demonstrable cases at all in the entire world in the human population (such as happens some years with influenza near the equinox or during a period of strong viral interference). What do you think will happen? Obviously both of them will become infected because of the enormous and enduring reservoir in the bird population.
Now consider that coronaviruses are even more infectious and have a wider diversity of animal reservoirs.
Seriously: how do you think pandemics emerge? Even though there is an endemic H3N2, pandemic H1N1 (or other influenza A subtypes) still break out, starting with _zero_ cases. Or do you deny that pandemic influenza is still possible?
Horizontal interdiction does not work with respiratory pathogens. Not on small or large scales. Pathogens which are sufficiently deadly can burn themselves out without being transmitted to an available susceptible, but this is a different phenomenon.
> If you keep the entire population locked up. If you implement a total curfew. Police the streets so that everyone stays inside. There is no doubt spreading will be reduced significantly.
In such a scenario, you're correct that spreading in the community will likely be less acute, but spread within households will likely be more acute. And then what? The virus will be no nearer to endemic equilibrium than when you started. So you'll have to facilitate the same acute spread you blocked in the first place.
> So the question isn't if lockdowns work. They work perfectly.
This is just a completely indefensible position in light of the data. No nation on earth has eliminated the virus, nor achieved endemic equilibrium with a lockdown in place. Every place that has done testing has found positive animal reservoirs. Just... stop.
> The question is what form of lockdown outweighs the costs to warrant putting them in place.
This is true, but it's not only the collateral damage that is to be measured. It is also the first-order effects, such as more acute spread in the household, delayed endemic equilibrium, etc. In addition to the collateral damage, lockdowns appear to cause more adverse outcomes _from the pathogen in question_.
> Neither China nor New Zealand have implemented anything resembling a successful strategy in anything but the very short-term.
I think New Zealand was free from Covid for maybe 1 year? I wouldn't call that short-term. While many countries were locked down, they were enjoying parties and festivals. If they would've kept themselves isolated from the rest of the world, they'd still be Covid-free.
> In such a scenario, you're correct that spreading in the community will likely be less acute
Yes, so that was the point. Lockdowns work to reduce spreading. We are in agreement.
> , but spread within households will likely be more acute.
Spreading within households would only occur for those households containing an infected person. This wouldn't be a very large percentage of the total households. 2 ~ 4 weeks later those households would've been recovered. A significant reduction would've been achieved. But it would come at great costs. And would only delay the inevitable once everything opens up again.
But you seem to be under the impression that there exists no form of lockdown that works. That's simply not true. We've already seen various real-world examples of successful lockdowns. China did them. New Zealand did so successfully in 2020. Italy did them when they were first hit.
Lockdowns simply work. The virus cannot spread between people that are isolated from each other. That's simple scientific fact. It's scientifically known how the virus transmits itself.
Take a simple experiment. 2 rooms opposing sides of the planet. 1 person in each room. 1 person infected. 1 person uninfected. There's simply no way the infected person can infect the uninfected person. They would need to get into contact with each other to allow the virus to spread.
If you keep the entire population locked up. If you implement a total curfew. Police the streets so that everyone stays inside. There is no doubt spreading will be reduced significantly. But we don't want to live in China.
So the question isn't if lockdowns work. They work perfectly. The question is what form of lockdown outweighs the costs to warrant putting them in place.