Oldsouljer said:
I've been of the opinion since the summer of 2020, that all the lockdowns accomplish is the slowing of herd immunity acquisition. It's like lockdowns promote the extension of a pandemic. That said, there's still a lot of unanswered questions. In my mind, one of them is why a seemingly young, healthy NC Highway trooper, for example, succumbed, while other people of various ages and backgrounds had such a wildly variable experience once they contracted Covid. The morbidity of Covid makes absolutely no sense to me.
Here are my basic thoughts:
1. Age matters and matters a lot. The age stratification with respect to Covid was obvious very early in the pandemic and it did not change. If you are over the age of 65, you are at higher risk for severe illness and possible death. Why? As you age, your immune system is actually less able to handle shocks to the system. Additionally, older people tend to have other health issues that put them on the edge and any significant illness can push them over the edge.
2. Seemingly healthy people are not as healthy as they appear. I remember very early in the pandemic, a child (they were 15 years old) died from Covid. What people did not know was the person had undiagnosed diabetes and it was the diabetes that played a large part in them having a bad outcome. I do believe many who died who appeared to be relatively healthy could have had undiagnosed comorbidities.
3. Comorbidities and in particular obesity, played a big part in people having very bad outcomes. You do not have to be significantly obese to have a bad outcome and many people who believe they are just a "little heavy" are actually obese and with Covid, this is not a good condition. I saw a statistic recently that showed 75% of the people who died from Covid would be classified as obese. I do believe this is a key reason why the US saw higher death rates when compared to other nations. The US has a significant obesity issue and it is something you hear very little about. In fact, when the impact of obesity on Covid death rates was raised a few months ago, the people raising the issue were attacked and activists tried to silence them. My personal view is this - being obese is not healthy and people should not be told it is okay. I think the data is clear that people who were not obese, had better outcomes than those who were obese.
4. Other comorbidities that contributed to bad outcomes were diabetes (strongly correlated with my point above on obesity), people who are immunocompromised, and people who have other health conditions that put them at risk (heart disease, cancer, etc). Along with the elderly, these are the groups we needed to focus on protecting. We wasted a huge amount of energy protecting young, healthy individuals.
5. One factor with Covid is how it stimulates your body's immune system to react. For some people, their body's immune response to Covid was so strong that it actually caused significant damage to the body. Some of the damage we saw to the cardiovascular and respiratory systems can be tied to the immune systems reaction to the virus. I liken this to someone who has allergic reactions to certain foods or chemicals. For example, I am allergic to shellfish. This is an allergy I developed over time and it finally manifested itself in my early 30's. Basically, when my body encounters a specific protein that is found in shellfish, my immune system takes action to protect me from the protein. Unfortunately, my body's attempts to protect me can actually kill me. This reaction is similar to how some people's bodies reacted to the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
So, after two years of the pandemic, my conclusion is this - lockdowns do not work and are actually bad healthcare policy. Many thought we could "buy time" until vaccines became available, but the vaccines we have are not sterilizing vaccines. They do a remarkably good job at preventing severe infection, but they will not prevent infection. For an airborne virus, it is basically impossible in any society to prevent the spread. I agree with your point about the lockdowns just delaying herd immunity.
My view is we should have done everything possible to keep the elderly and those with comorbidities as protected as possible, until we had vaccines. For healthy people, we should have kept life as normal as possible and not locked down or followed the draconian "social distancing" policies. We had lots of studies and epidemiological research that said lockdowns and social distancing are ineffective in stopping a virus. New Zealand, Australia, and China are great case studies that show those earlier studies were correct - lockdowns and social distancing measures do not work.
What does work? Vaccines and natural immunity. Ultimately, this is the only way you will ever find your way out of a pandemic. If you want to understand more on this subject and the ineffectiveness of the lockdown/social distancing policies we enacted, I would encourage you and others to read the following paper. One of the key authors of this paper is D.A. Henderson. For background, D.A. Henderson worked with the WHO and he is the person who is given primary credit for the eradication of smallpox.
Disease Mitigation Measures in the Control of Pandemic Influenza
