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Lockdowns aren't on the pareto frontier of policy options for even diseases significantly deadlier than covid imo, just because rapid development and distribution of technological solutions is possible, but ... covid killed one million people in the united states. Yes, mostly old people, but we're talking about protecting old people here. No reason to pretend otherwise.
The texts were:
Even for this, I agree it's possible he was just really mad at Trump and is usually pro-trump even in private, and that was his defense. People say a lot of things, in a lot of contexts, and cherrypicking can do almost anything. But ... on the balance, those are very strong statements. What makes you call it baseless?
... are they? I know some people in the Democrat Establishment. Mostly, they follow the law and the rules and try to do what's right. I don't think this is good evidence against election fraud, but it is strong evidence against them being moral mutants who hate truth and all that is good. Are my enemies innately evil?
Speaking of government policy, I wonder how many lives were lost because we couldn't conduct challenge trials on COVID? It was almost the ideal case - a disease with a rapidly-developed, experimental new vaccine and a large cohort of people (anyone under 40) for which it wasn't threatening. If we were a serious society - genuinely trying to optimize lives saved, rather than performatively closing churches and masking toddlers - I wonder how early we could have rolled out RNA vaccines for the elderly?
Yeah, I absolutely agree with that. We could've also done challenge trials on masks, different types of masks, different ways of instructing people how to use masks, ultraviolet sterilization, etc. And probably at least half of covid deaths could've been prevented with the level competence that's present in the best SV companies.
Rather more than half, given that 1st-world Asian countries did in fact prevent 80-90% of the deaths relative to a US baseline, and "the best SV companies" are presumably claiming to be more competent than Taiwanese bureaucrats (are they? Good question, and I don't know the answer). In terms of the combined cost of COVID mortality and morbidity and of unnecessary and ineffective preventative measures, the US was shockingly bad (and the UK was almost as bad - the only thing we got right was the vaccine rollout).
Preventing 1/2 the US deaths isn't the level of competence of the best SV companies, it's the level of competence of a slightly-above-average first world government bureaucracy.
Fair. Sometimes I make claims much weaker than my actual beliefs if they're enough to prove my point. I'm pretty sure a 'competent country' could have prevented 90%+ of covid deaths with no behavioral changes whatsoever other than minor things like masks, better ventilation, uv sterilization, and vaccines. But those asian countries still had significant behavioral changes that I'm arguing are unnecessary, even if less than here." And the standard for competence is somewhat high
There is a mountain of evidence masks did nothing.
Also Sweden looks great as well.
Maybe the solution to doing well with covid is “don’t have a bunch of fat old people”
Yes, I'm implying the competent country would design masks that worked.
I did a whole thing about this a year or so ago, obesity is much much less of a risk factor than age. Old and thin people still died a lot, 20 year old fat people didn't.
They are already designed, and look like a full-face respirator with positive air pressure supplied through a filter -- common industrial supply, but I think you need a country that was a bit more than 'competent' to get people to wear them.
... and wasn't a full-face powered respirator, yes
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